


I'll Follow You

by SmutLover



Series: Follow You 'Verse [2]
Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: AU: Elon Musk is pro union, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, For Science!, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sorry about the science, I'm sorry NASA, M/M, Mark Watney is a profane motherfucker, Teddy is still a wanker, The Botany Department
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 18:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 54,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16938486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmutLover/pseuds/SmutLover
Summary: The completely indulgent sequel to "How Far We've Gone". You'll need to read that first.--“The first step is enlarging the space station, as a stepping-off point and research facility.” Musk clicked, and another picture came up, this time of the SpaceX station with another ring stacked on the current single ring. “Mark, if you would, I’d like your first task to be looking over the current drawings and contributing anything you’ve got. You’re the expert. We’ve been putting off finalizing the plans, in the hopes you’d sign on.”“Yeah, sure.” Mark said faintly, still dazed.“Of course, Chris, if you have anything to add I’d be interested in your input, too.”“Thanks, but we know that’s really not my field.” Chris told Musk politely.“Did you know, you’re on the top ten list of astronauts with the most EVA time? Ever?” Musk asked him with a grin.“Ah. No, I hadn’t realized that.”“As such, I’m happy to listen to any thoughts you have on the subject. Also, there’s going to be a dedicated hospital area; I’d like you to outfit it. You must have ideas about what would be needed. A list of everything you wished you had on the Hermes, at the least.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, readers! I'll be posting in stages, with the goal for the story and the posting to finish sometime around New Year's.
> 
> This picks up literally as "How Far We've Gone" leaves off. Same office, same meeting as the Epilogue.

“A moon base.” Mark said, staring at the data screen in Musk’s office. 

“A moon COLONY.” Musk corrected. 

“Holy shit.” Mark said again, under his breath, as he let himself consider the possibilities. 

“The first step is enlarging the space station, as a stepping-off point and research facility.” Musk clicked, and another picture came up, this time of the SpaceX station with another ring stacked on the current single ring. “Mark, if you would, I’d like your first task to be looking over the current drawings and contributing anything you’ve got. You’re the expert. We’ve been putting off finalizing the plans, in the hopes you’d sign on.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Mark said faintly, still dazed. 

“Of course, Chris, if you have anything to add I’d be interested in your input, too.” 

“Thanks, but we know that’s really not my field.” Chris told Musk politely. 

“Did you know, you’re on the top ten list of astronauts with the most EVA time? Ever?” Musk asked him with a grin. 

“Ah. No, I hadn’t realized that.” Chris blinked a little. 

“As such, I’m happy to listen to any thoughts you have on the subject. Also, there’s going to be a dedicated hospital area; I’d like you to outfit it. You must have ideas about what would be needed. A list of everything you wished you had on the Hermes, at the least.” 

“I can do that.” Chris agreed automatically, nodding. 

“Humanity needs to learn to live on other planets.” Musk nodded at Mark. “And Mars is too far away, in case of emergency. We’ve certainly learned THAT the hard way. That leaves us with the moon, with the bonus that we can then use the moon as a staging area for any other exploration into the solar system.” Musk handed them both tablets. “These contain all the information on those projects, and a few others. They’re coded to your fingerprints. I’d like you to review it all, make an appointment, we’ll see what you think. Next week some time?” 

Mark and Chris both nodded automatically. This was infinitely different from NASA. 

“And, I hate to do it to you, but this requires a media conference. I’d like it done tomorrow afternoon, unless you have some objection. Rae will be taking point with you.” 

Rae had been the first PR person Mark had ever met who he actually liked. And yeah, they needed to make an actual announcement about this. “Sure.” 

“Both of you.” Musk said politely, but with command. 

“All right.” Chris agreed with a nod. 

Something chimed, and Musk glared at his watch. “Damn, another meeting.” He grumbled. “When I founded SpaceX, I thought it would be more explosions and less meetings.” 

“You should be an astronaut.” Mark told him. “For adrenaline junkies, we spend an awful lot of time peeing in cups.” 

Musk gave a bark of laughter. “I’m really going to enjoy having you both here. My PA’s waiting in the outer office, she’ll show you your offices, introduce you to your staff. You can go to her with any questions or needs, she’ll handle it.” 

“We have staff?” Mark asked Chris under his breath as they left Musk to his meeting. 

“Our lives just got weirder.” Chris muttered back. 

“I didn’t think that was possible.” 

“Me either.” 

–

They had adjoining offices on the executive floor, with a shared outer office run by a shared PA. “Mr Musk didn’t think you’d spend much time here, Doctor Beck, but if that changes, we can certainly bring in more office staff.” 

“No, you’re right, I’ll be in the labs or over at NASA most days.” Chris agreed. 

They hoped he’d be over at NASA. NASA still hadn’t agreed to let him back on the team researching the long-term effects of the Ares Three mission. 

Their shared personal assistant was named Hannah; she had a shock of purple hair that stood out in all directions, wore a flowered dress and combat boots, and looked about twelve years old. “I’m for your scheduling, communications, logistics. Mr Musk thought you’d want to hire your own research assistants, though I am more than happy to help with that, too.” She smiled at Mark. “I’ve got a physics degree and a basic understanding of aerospace as an industry, but I’m kind of worthless on botany or medical. Sorry.” She grinned at Chris. “Squishy science required dissection and I bailed on that.” 

“That’s fine.” Mark said, completely at a loss. He’d never had a PA before. “We’ll figure it out together, having an office and a PA is new to me.” At NASA he’d done his paperwork in the cafeteria, at the table nearest the coffee carafe, though he did have a space in the botany lab. 

Hannah beamed at him. 

Mark’s office was bigger, set up with a conference table and a conversation area as well as a desk, because he’d be doing more work there. There were several orthopedic chairs, Mark was pleased to note. Chris’ office was a simple desk setup, connected with a door to Mark’s. Chris’ office also held Doctor Sutherland and Doctor Ito, the flight surgeon and nutritionist they’d worked with for the past month. Mark had been right; they were part of Chris’ research team, if Chris wanted them. He did. 

The rest of the day was tours and network protocols and security IDs, and a very sad message to Mark from his PT because he’d missed his session that afternoon. They left a little early, because it was all TOO weird, with everyone thrilled to meet them and shaking their hands and beaming. 

–

When they got to the condo – home, Mark was starting to think of it as home – he could smell dinner from the front porch. “Oh fuck yeah, Mom made pot roast.” 

Chris laughed, and gave him a one-armed hug, and they went inside to share a meal with Mark’s parents. 

–

Later, in the evening quiet of their room, Chris leaned in and kissed him, all open mouth and lips and tongue, and Mark ran his fingers up into Chris’ hair and held him still, bit his lip, kissed some more. Chris moaned, and Mark got up and dragged him out of bed. 

“What?” Chris asked, as Mark pulled him along to the bathroom. 

Mark turned on the shower, then grabbed Chris and pushed him against the wall. “You are extremely noisy, Christopher, and my parents are in the guest room.” 

“I can be quiet.” Then he let out a loud yelp when Mark leaned in and bit the side of his neck. 

“You really can’t.” Mark said. “I fucking love it, but my mother already brought up the fact that we have noisy sex being all over social media, and I can’t face her tomorrow if I think she heard anything.” 

Chris was still laughing when Mark stripped all his clothes off and pulled him into the shower. 

–

“I’d hoped that with short notice, the media wouldn’t be too bad.” Mark complained, looking out into the media room at the main SpaceX building. 

“No such luck.” Chris sounded as glum as he felt. 

“Want me to take the lead on this?” Mark had always been better at media than anyone else on the crew; outreach had been his job as much as botany, and before things had gone so disastrously wrong on Mars, he’d done quite a lot of education, from elementary to college levels. While he’d always been short-tempered with the media, he had a real gift for explaining concepts that made him a favorite with the public. Teachers across the world were practically begging him to go back to vlogging; they didn’t even care what he spoke about. Whatever he did sparked interest in their students. 

“Only if you don’t tell anyone to fuck off.” 

“I can do that, if I get to set rules.” Mark agreed. 

“Which are?” 

“No questions about our personal lives.” 

“Works for me.” 

Mark was wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and loafers. As a concession to the event, Chris had put on a SpaceX tee shirt with his jeans and cross-trainers. “Well, let’s get it over with, then.” Mark decided. He went first, and the two of them went out and sat at the table Rae had set up for them. Used to the chaos by now, Mark sat and waited, letting it all roll over him, until the reporters got with the program and shut up. “Right. We’re going to make a statement, then we’ll take questions as long as you can stick to the subject, or for half an hour, whichever comes first. Not only will questions about our private lives be ignored, we’ll make sure whoever’s asking is removed. Chill, for crying out loud.” 

Things actually did get quiet, miracle of miracles. 

“Thank you. I’m going to be working for SpaceX as a consultant. Mostly in environmental engineering, but also in the botany lab. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, or will be when I’m done with them. We’ll be exploring more ways to use plants in artificial environments.” Which was his code for BUILDING FULLY ARTIFICIAL HABITATS ON THE MOON BITCHES! “When I’m not doing that, I’ll be setting up a non-profit, to explore and support sustainable farming practices around the world.” He looked over at Chris. 

“I’ll be signing on full time,” Chris picked up smoothly, “splitting my time between the safety offices and the medical facility. My work will be in research, although if I’m needed of course I’ll work with any other doctors here to treat anyone who needs my skills. As always, my emphasis will be on the long-term effects of space on the human body, but Mr Musk also wants me to work on developing EMS protocols for off-planet facilities and expeditions.” 

“Doctor Beck, isn’t that what you were doing for NASA?” Someone asked. 

“The EMS work is completely new. I've worked on nutrition and space travel for most of my career.” Chris said smoothly. “I studied it while I was in medical school and in the Air Force, before I even got to NASA. This is simply a continuation.” 

Chris was WAY more diplomatic than Mark was. 

“What about Doctor Watney?” A woman in the front asked. 

“Uh.” He was going to need more detail. “What about me?” 

“Aren’t you being studied? Given your history?” 

Ah, that. “Yes. You could say I’m Doctor Beck’s favorite test subject. However, given the experience I had, I might be most useful as a data point to compare to the rest of the Ares Three crew. I’m more than happy to help out medical science, but I don’t think we’ve got any plans in the works to repeat my adventure. Ever.” 

Polite chuckles. 

“How is your health, Doctor Watney?” 

“Good. Ankle’s healing up and everything. Thanks to Mr Musk, and Doctors Sutherland, Ito, and Rameau, Nurse Ortega, and this guy over here,” Mark jerked his thumb at Chris and people smiled, “I feel the best I have since I got home. Everyone’s been really great.” 

“Why didn’t you go to NASA?” 

Mark and Chris had discussed exactly how to handle the N-word questions. When they’d asked Musk what he wanted them to say, he’d laughed at them and gave them some fake-sincere bullshit about ‘not wanting to censor them’ which translated to ‘hahaha throw them under the bus, I’ll enjoy it’. “NASA and I had some disagreements on the goals of my treatment. For further detail, you’ll have to consult them.” From the buzz in the room, Mark, well, he’d feel sorry for Montrose except she was pure evil. 

“Will you be settling in Houston?” 

“Yes.” Mark said easily. Please let’s keep having simple questions. “There will be some travel, of course, both of us are wanted as guest lecturers, that sort of thing, and flyboy will be going up again if he can possibly arrange it, but our home base will be here.” 

More buzz. “Doctor Beck plans to return to space?” 

Chris gave Mark a squinty look for a moment. “Only low earth orbit and the space station. It will be helpful for some of my research, and Mr Musk has asked me to oversee a few projects. IF the medics allow it. I haven’t begun the health checks, and my eyes could be a problem. We’ll see.” 

“Doctor Watney, how do you feel about that?” 

Ugh, feelings. “He’s an astronaut. Watching him grounded, the last few years, has been like watching a dog without a bone.” 

“Oh, thanks.” Chris told him. 

“Well, it HAS.” 

“Do you have any comment on the sex recording-” It was as far as the guy got before security got him by the collar and hauled him out. 

“Thank you, security!” Mark called cheerfully. 

The media looked a little nervous, which was exactly how Mark liked them. “Doctor Beck, why aren’t you continuing your research with NASA? Why switch to SpaceX?” 

“The funding is better over here.” Chris smiled. “For the rest, you’ll have to ask NASA. Although my current plan is to work WITH NASA on this project, so it'll be double the resources.” 

Have fun with that, Teddy Sanders. 

“Are you glad to be back in Houston?” 

A NICE question. He grinned. “Yeah. Lot of good memories here.” 

“And part of our Ares Three crew, so we’ve got family in town.” Chris added. 

“You consider the Ares Three crew family?” 

What a stupid question. “Absolutely” Mark told them, at the same time Chris said “Yes, of course.” 

–

“That could have gone worse.” Mark said, after. 

“It was beautifully done.” Rae, their SpaceX publicist, disagreed. She handed them both cups of coffee.

“It’s so strange not to have the PR people screaming at Mark after one of these things.” Chris told her. 

She laughed. 

–

They were having coffee in Mark’s office when the call came through. Because Mark insisted on open doors through the whole place unless there was a need for privacy, they could hear the whole thing. 

“Office of Doctor Christopher Beck.” Hannah said. There was a pause. Some uh-huh, uh-huh. “Doctor Beck is VERY busy.” She said primly. “I’ll check. Hold.” 

“I’m busy?” Chris asked Mark. They were still getting tours and catching up on in-progress research. 

Mark shrugged. 

Hannah appeared with a laughing grin on her face. “Hey. NASA’s on the horn, Teddy Sanders wants you over there on the double. My advice? Make him come here.” 

“What do you know about that?” Mark had to ask. 

“Unfortunately, not a lot. I’d love to hear it. But everyone who has worked with you, met you, or even bumped into you in the hallway here thinks you’re both easygoing, professional without being stuffy, and friendly. Doctor Sutherland is impossible to impress, and she’s impressed. Both of you say please and thank you to me, your lowly PA, and have yet to ask me to walk your dog or pick up your dry-cleaning. So whatever NASA did to piss you off, must have been worth getting angry over.” 

“...everyone here thinks that?” Mark double-checked. 

“Yep!” Hanna said brightly. 

“Oh, hell.” Chris mumbled. He shook his head. “I want to be seen at NASA, but you’re right, tell them I’m super busy and insist the appointment has to be Monday afternoon.” 

“Cool.” Hannah agreed, and went back to do it. 

“Odds it’s Teddy, capitulating?” Mark asked. 

“High. He’s going to be extra happy when he finds out I have demands.” 

“Oh?” 

“Since I got the entirety of your records? I’m either taking over the team with the power to hire and fire, or I’ll walk. Possibly with the bonus of telling the media why, if he’s a dick about it. And when he puts me in charge, I’m going after Helm and Chen with extreme prejudice. They’re getting fired and their work turned over to the licensing bureau. They SHOULD never practice medicine again, once the records are reviewed.” 

Two more doctors who’d treated Mark like a great research opportunity instead of a person. Helm had been fond of denying him drugs ‘because they don’t work that well, anyway’. Mark wasn’t sure how Chen had broken the doctor rules, but he’d been an unbelievable prick. “I’ll ask Johanssen for the security feed.” 

“Since we’re talking about it, do you remember Doctor Benton?” 

“I don’t know...” It had been so chaotic and he’d been having anxiety attacks or worse, through most of it. 

“Young, weedy kid, dark skin, dreads, maybe five feet tall, hundred pounds dripping wet?” 

“Oh! Yeah.” He’d raised some ethical questions and Mark had never seen him again. “Shit, did they can him?” 

“No, but he was banished to Serology, where he moves test tubes around all day. His education’s great and he’s written some interesting papers. I was wondering, would it bother you to see him a lot? I need a research assistant over here.” 

“Not only would it not bother me, I love the idea of him getting a chance to do his job. He was the only one worth a shit, that I remember.” 

“Good. Thanks.” They clicked coffee mugs. “Got any idea on your own assistants, yet?” 

“Nah. One will turn up.” 

–

Friday, Mark was officially ‘released from treatment’. He and his doctors and nurse shared a bottle of champagne Musk had sent, and Mark thanked them all, giving hugs where they’d be accepted. “Although, this isn’t really ‘released’.” He complained. 

Chris finished buckling him into a new splint-brace sort of thing that would finally let him walk without crutches but still support his ankle. “Yes, PT is looking forward to spending quality time with you every day. And you’re still eating every three hours.” 

Ugh. 

–

When he got home that night, there was more champagne and hugs from both his parents, for Chris as well as Mark. “We changed our plane tickets around.” Mark’s mother announced. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow.” 

“What? I thought you were staying until next week.” Thanksgiving was next week. 

“We were.” She smiled. “You need some alone time. The two of you are nesting, getting things organized, and will be spending most of your time at work next week anyway.” She kissed Mark, then Chris. “Marissa is expecting you.” 

Thanksgiving at the Martinez house was always fun, but, “Are you sure?” 

“We got to check out your house, your friends, and your guy. We’re good.” Mark’s dad smiled.

“I told Marissa you would be bringing the family dressing, and you’re in charge of the gravy once you get over there. Do not disappoint me.” Mark’s mom told him. 

“Gravy is Mom’s super power.” Mark explained to Chris, who burst out laughing. “Gravy, and baseball statistics.” 

“Damn straight.” Mrs Watney agreed. 

–

They got home from the airport around noon, after dropping Mark’s parents off, and Mark sat in the car, looking across the parking lot toward their condo. He wouldn’t make some ‘might as well be the moon’ dumbass metaphor thing, but damn, it did look a long way away. Even tensing up his muscles to get out of the car hurt. 

“Overdid it, huh?” Chris said. 

Mark figured Chris could do that kind of thing because he was a doctor and a detail guy and between the two he could put together a hell of a lot about people. He’d seen Chris do it. But right at the moment it felt like Chris was reading his mind. “Walking the entire way through the airport may not have been the smartest thing I ever did.” 

“But you wanted your parents to see you off the crutches before they left.” 

Maybe Chris was reading his mind. 

“Crutches, or wheelchair?” Mark had recently found the closet full of medical supplies (Chris was showing it to his mother, to make his mother feel better), and to his disgust it did include a folding wheelchair. Fuckin’ Elon Musk. He thought of everything. 

“Crutches and painkillers?” Mark asked hopefully. 

“Yeah, we can do that.” Chris kissed the side of his head. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” He jogged across the parking lot to the condo, and Mark felt a little twinge of envy, that he could jog and Mark himself was still dragging around. He was back almost immediately with the crutches and a bottle of water and pills, so Mark could dose himself before he even moved. Best boyfriend ever. “Through to the porch.” Chris told him at the door, and Mark didn’t argue, went through the condo and flopped out on the chaise they’d taken to lounging on together. Chris put some pillows under Mark’s foot, disappeared, came back with drinks and snacks. 

“Do you ever get tired of feeding me?” The question was about half serious. 

“No. I like taking care of you.” 

“Good thing.” 

Chris laughed as he kicked off his shoes and stretched out next to Mark. “It goes both ways. I’m little gestures, you’re major issues.” 

“I am?” 

“I’d have never signed with SpaceX if it wasn’t for you pointing out all the reasons I should.” 

“You’d have gotten there.” Mark leaned over and kissed him. “Mmm. I nudged you along a little, that’s all.” 

“I’m not sure about that.” 

They kissed a while, and cuddled together, Mark gradually relaxing as the painkillers got to work. 

“When did you know?” Chris asked softly. He’d slid his hand up under Mark’s shirt to lay it over the scar – and heart – that were under his ribs. 

“Know what?” 

“That it was me you were interested in.” 

“Ah.” Mark thought for a while. “Well, you were the best damn thing I’d ever seen when you appeared outside the MAV, but given the circumstances, I think I’d have felt that way about any of the crew.” 

Chris nodded against his neck. 

“There were also a couple urges to cuddle and lean against you indefinitely, but again, at the time, I figured it was the circumstances. Alone for that long, touch starved, all that.” 

“Could have been.” Chris agreed. 

“It was when I noticed your eyes, I knew something was going on. That was within twenty-four hours of getting back on the Hermes. All the crazy shit I’d gone through, I could use it to write off a lot of weird thoughts, but Lewis’ eyes are blue and I didn’t give a shit about them.” 

“My eyes?” 

“They’re sky blue. Atmosphere sky blue. Most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” 

“Oh.” Chris smiled and kissed him softly. 

“After that I was constantly noticing stuff about you that was, well, let’s call it odd, if I was a hundred percent heterosexual. You’ve got really long eyelashes. And this hoo-hoo laugh when you’re genuinely amused rather than putting up with me and Martinez. An incredible body. Other stuff.” 

They kissed a while, soft and gentle, and then Chris started hand-feeding him, because of course he did. “I’ll eat without complaining if you tell me your version.” 

“My version?” 

“When you noticed me.” 

“Oh.” Chris laughed and handed him a plate of fruit, cheese, and crackers. “I don’t think you ever realized, I befriended you with great deliberation.” 

“You’re kidding.” 

“No. Was in the cafeteria one day, and I overheard someone explaining in great, profane, typically Watney detail to someone else about why botanists were in fact useful in space. They got offended, and you muttered ‘and fuck you too, sunshine’ after them as they left, and I thought yeah, this was someone worth getting to know.” 

“I don’t remember that. Or, I had that conversation so often, I don’t remember which time it was.” 

“I tracked down whoever it was in bio who was a really profane botanist – surprisingly easy, you had a reputation even then – and went to your lab to introduce myself.” 

“THAT I remember.” 

“Did you know I was thinking ‘oh shit, no one told me how hot he is’ the entire time?” 

“Poker-Face Beck.” Mark laughed, shaking his head. “Of course I didn’t know.” 

“By then they were doing selections for Ares Three, and dating wasn’t a priority for me. Especially dating a potential teammate. I kept it friendly, thought maybe after, if everything went right. Found out you were hetero, kind of shrugged. Wasn’t like it was in the immediate future anyway. By then we were hanging out together, good friends, and since I wasn’t looking to date at that point, it didn’t make that much difference to me.” 

“When did it change?” 

“After we got back. I realized you were my go-to for all the stuff we were dealing with, and I was yours. The year in Boston, we were in a relationship already. It wasn’t romantic until you said something, but even before that, it filled all the spaces in my life a romantic relationship would, except for sex.” 

“That worked for you?” 

“Very well.” Chris stole a bit of cheese. “Figured if I HAD to have sex I could go have a casual thing with someone. But I’ve had casual sex, and that wasn’t what I wanted.” He shrugged. “I was happier than I’d ever expected to be when I was wondering what to do with my life, on the way home from Mars.” 

Mark put the plate aside and leaned in to kiss Chris with intent. “This is more than I ever expected to have. Ever. With anyone.” 

“Me too.” Chris agreed, and pulled him down on top of him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The brain is notorious for bringing out emotions and traumas to deal with, when things feel safe enough to do so. It’s documented. A lot. And we’ve been settling in here, and other than medical, everything’s been very calm. I’d like to think our relationship also makes you feel secure, like you’ve got support; it does for me.”
> 
> “You weren’t going to mention this?” 
> 
> “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Mark. Your PTSD could get more active any second now’? That might trigger you all by itself. Better to shut up and not give your brain any ideas.” 
> 
> “So what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Mark asked them both. 
> 
> “Same as you have been.” Scott told him gently. “Learn to cope.”

Monday morning, Mark’s brain decided to celebrate the new stability in his life by having a flashback, triggered by nothing anyone had ever identified as a trigger. 

They’d walked in, given Hannah a donut and coffee they’d picked up for her when they got their own, and were talking about what they were doing that day. Chris was scheduled to get the cast off his hand that morning, and was going over to NASA to have his meeting with Teddy Sanders that afternoon. 

“You do realize, breaking someone else’s face, fresh out of the cast, will probably cause problems. I’m just saying.” Mark said sagely. Because he wasn't the doctor, so of course he knew everything. 

“I’m not breaking anyone’s face.” Again. 

“Sure. If you do, knock ‘em down and kick them.” He circled his desk, still smiling, dropped down into the chair, and turned on his monitor. “You need to take care of-” 

That was it. He blinked off like he had a switch, which was BAD. Chris had never seen him do that before, even fresh off Mars. “Mark?” No answer. He was staring ahead, eyes unfixed, breathing elevated. “Shit.” He grabbed the arm of Mark’s office chair, dragged him out and away, crouched down, and took Mark’s pulse. Also elevated, but even. 

Hannah appeared in the door, eyebrows raised. 

“There’s a jump bag in my desk, bottom drawer, left side.” She nodded and took off at a run. “Damn it, Mark.” He patted Mark’s cheek. “MARK.” 

He snapped out of it as fast as he’d gone under, sucking a deep breath and looking around wildly. Then he froze for one long moment, and collapsed back into the chair. “Fuck.” 

“There you are.” Chris took a deep breath of his own, and took the bag Hannah ran back with. 

Mark dropped his head back and shut his eyes. “Week of Thanksgiving, Houston, my office at SpaceX. Chris Beck, Hannah Wilson, you get your cast off in an hour. I’m here.” He paused while Chris listened to his heart. “Fuck.” 

“What do you need?” Hannah asked. 

Chris finished taking Mark’s blood pressure, twice. It was already dropping. 

“Could you get me a cup of coffee? Please?” 

“Sure.” Hannah said gently, going to the small wet bar that held every drink and method to make it, except for booze. She made it, gave it to him. “What happened? Can I ask?” 

“Of course you can. Mars flashback.” Mark told her. “I don't get them too often, but apparently it’s going to be something I do around here. Unless you want to find another office to work in. I’ll understand.” 

“Flashback?” Chris repeated softly, and Mark’s attention shifted back to him. 

“Yeah. Back to Mars. Nothing unusual, or stressful, I was just back on Mars. Sitting on this rock I used to sit on in the evenings, watch the sun go down. It was actually as peaceful and pleasant as life got.” 

“Trigger?” 

“No idea.” Mark took off his glasses, rubbed his face, drank some coffee. “FUCK.” 

Hannah was staring up at the ceiling. “Does blowing air bother you?” 

Mark and Chris gave each other a confused look. “Not that I know of?” Mark decided. “But apparently I’ve missed something.” 

“Mmm.” Hannah said thoughtfully, and went to stand behind the desk where Mark had been sitting, held her hand out, kept looking at the ceiling. “There’s a vent up there, and it’s blowing air this way.” She caught the look she was getting from both men, and smiled a little. “My mom gets migraines. Not the same, except when it is.” 

“Could have been it.” Mark admitted. “Never did it before, but who the fuck knows?” 

“Do you want me to call Doctor Scott?” Hannah asked. 

Their shrink. Chris could tell Mark wanted to say no, but… “Yes, please.” Chris decided. 

“All right. Yell if you need me.” 

As soon as she was out of the office, Mark leaned forward to put his head on Chris’ shoulder. “How long was I gone?” 

“Maybe a minute, not even? You zoned in the middle of a sentence, I grabbed you and snapped you back almost immediately.” Chris kissed Mark’s temple, and sat back a little to go through his medical bag. “Here. Humor me.” He held out a pill. 

“Ativan?” 

“Yeah. You’ll be washing it down with coffee. You can pretend you haven’t even taken it.” 

Mark gave a low laugh that put Chris a little at ease, took the pill with a slug of coffee. “If my nice new office winds up giving me flashbacks, I’m gonna be pissed off.” 

“Yeah, but you have a PA who doesn’t even blink at it, and you can move offices.” 

Mark laughed again. 

“You rang?” Doctor Scott, their new shrink, asked from the door. 

“Talk to him.” Chris said gently, and kissed Mark firmly on the lips like they almost never did in front of others. “I love you.” 

“Thanks. I love you too.” 

“Mark checks out, medically he’s fine.” Chris told Scott, then left, closing the door behind himself. 

–

“I just had a goddamn flashback to fucking Mars.” Mark told Scott. 

Scott made a proper ‘that sucks’ face, came in, and sat down near Mark. “Know what caused it? If anything?” 

“No. Not the first clue, which DELIGHTS me.” 

“I bet. How bad was it?” 

Mark shrugged. “As much as these things have degrees, it was pretty minor. Simple memory from Mars, no stress associated with the memory that I can figure. The fact I had one at all in a safe space is NOT minor.” 

“Well.” Scott hesitated. 

“Oh, goddamn, what?” 

Scott grinned a little. “I was going to mention this when we met this week. You know your recovery isn’t going to be an easily traced curve, right? There will be times it feels you’re going backward, or getting nowhere.” 

“Like now.” 

“Yeah, and it might get worse, or at least feel like it's getting worse. It’s thought that some types of PTSD are your brain trying to process traumatic events. Maybe all of them, we don’t fully understand it, even now after decades of study.” 

“Mars hasn’t really been bothering me, not like the medical shit has.” 

“I know. It’s possible your brain has been hanging on, waiting until you felt settled and safe, before trying to process the worst memories and emotions from Mars.” 

“And NOW it’ll go bugfuck?” 

Scott shook his head. “Hard to say. But it’s possible. It’s something you should be prepared for.” 

Mark heard himself actually growl. Because god fucking damn it to hell, he did not need MORE PTSD. “CHRIS!” He shouted at the adjoining office door. 

Chris appeared instantly; Mark would suspect listening at doors, but he’d seen Chris haul ass many times in emergencies. “Come in.” Mark told him. Then he turned to Scott. “Tell him what you told me.” He realized he was sounding angry and tried to get a grip. “Please.” 

He drank coffee and glared out the window as Chris was brought up to speed. 

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that.” Chris told Scott. 

“What?” Mark demanded. 

Chris held up his hands. “The brain is notorious for bringing out emotions and traumas to deal with, when things feel safe enough to do so. It’s documented. A lot. And we’ve been settling in here, and other than medical, everything’s been very calm. I’d like to think our relationship also makes you feel secure, like you’ve got support; it does for me.” 

“You weren’t going to mention this?” 

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Mark. Your PTSD could get more active any second now’? That might trigger you all by itself. Better to shut up and not give your brain any ideas.” 

“So what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Mark asked them both. 

“Same as you have been.” Scott told him gently. “Learn to cope.” 

“I don’t have the time for this bullshit.” Mark glared when Scott snorted out a chuckle. 

“I’m sorry. Sincerely. That was wrong.” Scott apologized. “But I get that reply at least ninety percent of the time around here. Nobody has time for it. It just is. Most likely scenario is, you’ll have some memories of Mars closer to the surface than they have been. Recognize them, cope with them, accept them. Talk to me about them. Talk to Chris. Keep in mind there is also medication, and there is no shame in it.” 

“I don’t get to think that way with Bossy Beck over here.” Mark reminded him. 

Scott nodded. “Good. It’s nice to see a reasoned approach to psych meds. Memories should ease off again as you learn to cope, exactly like the medical PTSD has.” 

“Until the next time I feel secure, and my brain barfs up more, different bullshit at me.” Mark finished. 

“Brains are complicated.” Scott told him, which was no damn answer at all. 

Brains were fuckin’ stupid. 

–

Mark’s bone guy, Rameau, had stepped up to take care of Chris after Chris broke his hand on someone’s face. During the cast removal, Rameau had all sorts of helpful advice, most of it about softer spots to hit on the human body, different types of boxing gloves, and remembering he was in full gravity next time he did illegal boxing moves. 

“He should be kicking.” Mark argued. “Guy’s a surgeon, he shouldn’t be punching ANYONE, he needs to take care of his hands.” 

“Excellent point, Doctor Watney.” Rameau agreed with a twinkle in his eye. “No more punching, Doctor Beck. Kicking only. Think mixed martial arts.” He told Chris with a straight face. 

After having Chris make a fist a couple times, demonstrate his range of motion, and discuss pain levels, he was sent away with a cup of putty to squish for strengthening, told to take anti-inflammatories for pain, and given an order to call if anything unusual came up. 

“Wait. WAIT.” Mark demanded as Chris and Rameau were clearing out. “Hold it. I break my ankle and get infinite PT, HE busts his hand on SOMEONE’S FACE, and he gets ‘call us if it gets weird’?” 

“I’m a doctor, plus all the extra cross-training I had for Ares, I can run my own PT.” Chris assured him. “Also, you're on infinite PT for the bone density.” 

Rameau held up his hands. “He’s a doctor. He knows how the healing process should go. Also what he’s not supposed to do. Like punch people.” 

“I am getting ripped off.” 

“Get a medical degree.” Rameau told him unhelpfully. “We’ll bother you less, too. Seriously, though, keep him from punching anyone else for at least six weeks. Three months would be better.” 

–

After lunch, Chris took off for NASA and Mark went back to his office to plow through MORE engineering data for the space station addition, desperately trying to catch up. He was also jotting down ideas as he went, for ways to incorporate plants experimentally. How hard would it be to launch a couple small trees to the Station? Less than three feet plus root ball. Maybe some fucking shrubs. They could try growing from scratch, and he’d see they did, but something hardy could survive liftoff, right? Would trees grow in forty percent gravity? Lots of other plants put up with it. Why hadn’t anyone tried it before? They’d help the atmosphere more than a lot of other plants, and put more water into the air. 

He was digging into information on mosses and moss walls and wondering how to water one without causing a mess if the gravity went off, when there was a knock at the door. 

“Doctor Watney?” It was Hannah, hovering in the doorway being polite. Usually she walked right in and started talking, as they’d arranged the first day they’d worked together. 

“I’m tempted to not answer until you start calling me Mark. This formality thing is ridiculous when you’re going to run my life.” Mark never looked away from the monitor. 

“Doctor Watney.” Hannah said, closing the door softly. “Can I have a minute or two?” 

That sounded legitimately serious. “Always.” He turned away from his work, gave her his full attention; she was a good kid, was there before they got there in the morning, was still there when they left in the evenings, efficient as hell, and even had a sense of humor to make her easy to work with. He and Chris had agreed, she was another of Musk's 'here is the absolute best person I could find for you' perks. “What’s up?” 

“I don’t want to pry or invade your privacy in any way, but. This morning.” 

The flashback. Fuck. “I’m sorry if that upset you, I guess it did seem a little freaky. It's a PTSD thing, from Mars and all the related crap.” 

“If we’re here and Doctor Beck isn’t, what do I do?” 

“You don’t have to do anything, Hannah.” Mark said it as gently as possible. Every once in a while he wished he had Chris’ psych training, and this was one of those times. 

She rolled her eyes at him, and okay, that was better. “No. I mean, how do I snap you out of it?” 

Oh. “You can call Chris. If you don’t want to wait on him, touch usually does it. Say my name, touch my hand or my face. I’ve never been violent, you aren’t at risk.” 

“I’m not worried about that.” She straightened her shoulders. “My job is to look after you and Doctor Beck. I need information to be able to do that.” 

“This is beyond your job description. Way beyond. Especially when you’ve known me all of a week.” Mark stood. “Can I give you a hug, in a purely avuncular, not creepy, you’re-the-best-PA-ever sort of way?” 

Hannah laughed. “Yeah.” She walked over, and gave him a quick squeeze. He patted her back gently. 

“I’ll have Chris talk to you when he gets back, okay? He’s the guy to ask, he’s used to dealing with me. But this is over and above, you don’t have to deal with it if you don’t want to.” 

Hannah relaxed. “That will work, I’ll talk to Doctor Beck. Thank you.” 

“No, thank you.” Mark told her as she went back to her office. He wondered where Musk had found her, and made a note to talk to HR. He wanted to give her a raise. Whatever she was making, it wasn’t enough. 

–

Chris walked in the main entrance of NASA, mainly to cause a stir and get the word out that yeah, he was back. 

He always tried not to speculate on how many taxpayer dollars went into impressing visitors. There were flags flying outside, every nation NASA worked with as well as the UN. Inside they had the NASA seal worked into the floor, with lots of skylights and open space before you got to security checkpoints. Both walls were lined with photos of mission crews, from Apollo through the ISS and all the way up to Ares. Each group of missions had its own space on the walls, with a little summary of what they did, and the formal shots of each crew. Except for the Ares missions. Mitch told him that after Mark had been declared dead on Mars, there’d been some black and an RIP photo there, and flowers left. But now, there were three formal framed photos, and in the space where Ares Four should have gone, someone had taped a picture that was printed out on regular paper. Chris walked over to take a look. 

It was of him, him and his crew, taken last week in the back yard of the condo. Mark’s mother had taken the photo. All six of them had lined up, sideways-on, so that their number tattoos were visible with the new additions they’d gotten. They’d been laughing uproariously over something Mark had said, and were mugging for the camera, and they all looked happy, and healthy. Lewis, in the lead, had her head turned back to look at the rest of them, and Martinez, on the other end, was leaning into Mark next to him, hand on his shoulder. All of them were crowded together with arms around each other and the whole picture radiated happiness and family. He touched a piece of tape that was holding down each corner. It was electrical tape. 

Johanssen’s work. 

Smiling, Chris continued through to security, and then after making them nervous, to Teddy’s office. He’d ALMOST worn Mark’s ‘Fuck Mars’ tee shirt for the occasion, but settled for SpaceX. Probably more annoying anyway. 

“Doctor Beck for Teddy Sanders.” Chris said easily to the receptionist at the desk, who knew damn well who he was. 

“He’ll be with you shortly, Doctor Beck.” 

Ah, the waiting game. After five minutes, Chris pulled out his phone, took a selfie of himself in front of the NASA logo giving a peace sign, and opened up Twitter. 

Chris Beck @BeckAres3  
Back at the old homestead for some meetings. Maybe they’ll let me go to Ganymede.

He attached the photo, hit send, and started the timer on his watch. 

One minute and fourteen seconds later, Teddy threw open his office door. “Come in.” He ordered. 

Chris did, and went to sit in the seating area at the side of the office, rather than in front of Teddy’s desk. He refused to let Teddy play Principal to his Errant Student. Teddy knew what he was up to and looked furious before he even sat down. Good. Chris hated not accomplishing things he worked at. “What do you want, Teddy?” 

“Congress wants me to ask you to come back.” Teddy said through his teeth. 

Chris smiled. The last time they’d seen each other, they’d made mutual threats to ruin each others’ careers, among other things. Now it looked like he was winning, and he hadn’t even started his end of the fight. “I’ve got a contract at SpaceX.” 

“They were hoping you could be dissuaded from signing.” 

That was interesting. “Too late, sorry.” Chris said in his least sorry voice possible. 

Teddy glared. 

Chris manifestly did not care. 

“In that case, I’m ordered to offer you a consulting spot on the Ares team in the Health and Wellness labs.” 

It was interesting, how Teddy was relaying all this and making sure Chris knew he wasn’t wanted there. But it sorta made Teddy look like congress was leading him around by his balls. “I could be persuaded.” 

“We don’t have the money to pay you more than your original salary. Take it or leave it.” Proving, once again, that Teddy was terrible at figuring out what people wanted, which made him an awful manager. Great at corporate game-playing, obviously, but absolutely worthless at managing the people he wound up in charge of. 

“You can keep the money. I’ll work for free. Wait, no, add my salary onto the lab budget.” 

Teddy visibly ground his teeth. “What do you want, Beck?” 

“I’m the most qualified person to lead the lab. The entire world knows it. Put me in charge, or forget it.” 

“And what am I supposed to do with the man in charge of it now?” 

The guy currently in charge was Chen, who’d been taking unauthorized tissue samples from unconscious astronauts for at least a decade, and would be losing his medical license by the end of the week if Chris had anything to say about it. “I’ll take care of Chen.” 

“If I leave him there, you’ll have a war.” 

“No I won’t.” 

Teddy snorted. “Fine. I’ll put you in charge. On paper. Taking charge is your own problem.” 

“Deal.” Chris held out his hand, and Teddy shook it. “I’ll be by tomorrow. Have them send everything they’ve got to me tonight so I can look it over.” He rose and walked out. 

In the outer office, Annie Montrose was pacing and glaring. “You ASSHOLE.” She snarled as soon as she saw him. “We’re getting calls from god and everyone asking about a manned mission to JUPITER.” 

“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Chris said with a smile, and walked out of NASA whistling ‘Disco Inferno’. 

–

Mark got the live feed of the meeting, and watched it in his office. The window had simply opened on his monitor, and there it all was, with sound. He knew Johanssen’s work when he saw it, though if anyone asked, he had NO IDEA, none, how he’d wound up with a live feed of the NASA director’s office. 

NASA had no idea what they were in for when Chris showed up tomorrow, but Mark hoped Johanssen cut together a ‘best of’ vid for him. 

–

“What a fucking day.” Mark complained, letting them into the condo. “How’s your hand?” 

“Hurts like the fires of hell. How’s your ankle?” 

It had been his first work day off crutches. “Fires of hell.” 

“Come on. Snacks and painkillers for both of us.” 

Mark got a pint of ice cream and two spoons. “We eat healthy all the time. We can say fuck it once in a while.” They dropped onto the chaise on the back porch and proceeded to eat the entire pint, passing it back and forth. “You know, you’re always on my ass to get more ‘good fats’ in my diet, I’m going to be getting them from ice cream from now on.” 

Chris humphed and laid back on the chaise. “Got what I wanted with Teddy today. Not getting paid, probably-” 

“I got a live feed of the whole thing.” 

“How?”

“Considering it randomly popped up on my work computer as I was trying to read something, I’m guessing Johanssen but I don’t want to ask and incriminate her.” 

“She’s kinda scary.” 

“She’s a genius anarchist who won at least one hackathon. Bet you she's won more either anonymously or under other names; no one that smart would want it publicly known how good she is at cracking computer security. I don’t think NASA’s considered what she’ll be like once they don’t have Mars as a carrot to hold out. I doubt she’ll stay on the straight and narrow. Hell, she isn’t law-abiding now, she's being discreet.” 

“Can you imagine what she’d be like if she got hired over at SpaceX with us?” 

Mark had imagined. “Life goal.” 

“Once she’s done with Ares, we’ll see what we can talk her into.” 

“NASA loses her, they’re going to go bugfuck. Like seriously, legitimately bugfuck.” Mark stood, grabbed Chris’ hand. “Come on. We can’t have sex out here, you’ll scare the kids with your screaming.” 

“Not funny.” 

“Not kidding.” 

They got inside, made sure the windows were all shut – this time – and Mark sat down on the side of the bed to take off his damn ankle splint. 

“Does it bother you?” Chris asked. 

“Does what bother me?” Mark said absently, tossing aside the splint and kicking off his shoe. 

“The noise.” 

Mark looked up, and huh, Chris seemed a little embarrassed. That was… wrong. “No.” He stood and grabbed Chris, pulled him in for some kissing. “Mm. I love that you make noise, and thrash around, and everything else. One day you’ll make me come in my pants with the begging. You were always kind of reserved at NASA, I assume professionalism. On the Hermes, even when you loosened up a little bit toward the end, you were still pretty stern and serious. I’m not complaining or criticizing, it’s how you were and I understand. But watching you push up into my hands, having you moan at me? It’s amazing.” He pulled Chris’ shirt up over his head and off. “Also knowing you never wear underwear under those jeans makes my brain melt a little, whenever I think about it. Doctor Beck, all reserved professionalism, walking around being authoritative, commando.” He pushed Chris gently toward the bed. “Lay down. Let me have you.” 

“All right.” Chris laid back and watched as Mark took off his own clothes. “You know, the diet and the PT, you’re really getting ripped.” 

“I am?” Mark looked down at himself, and huh. Lookie there. Muscle definition. “Huh. Go, me.” He wandered the room, dimming the lights, getting the lube (Chris laughed, and did the little turned-on stretch thing he did), tossing his pants over a chair. “Now then.” He crawled up the bed and they kissed for a while, soft and gentle. That would never get old, those soft warm lips on his, and the brush of the whiskers. Mark laid down along him, pulled Chris’ nearest leg up over his hip. When he smoothed his hand down the inside of Chris’ thigh, Chris relaxed further. “Put a pillow under your hips.” 

Chris made a rough noise in his throat, and did. “Want you to fuck me.” 

“We’ll get there, Doctor Impatient.” Chris made a grab for the lube and Mark laughed and held it away from him. “No. I’ve seen you in action. I'm amazed you got me to believe the ‘I want to savor’ line the first time we were together, when you’re constantly trying to jump me. Keep it up, and one of these days I might have to tie you down.” 

“Mark-” Chris started, then twitched and rolled his eyes back as Mark pressed a finger into him. 

“There we go. You need to learn to slow down, Christopher, or how am I supposed to watch every expression cross your face?” Mark licked the edge of Chris’ ear, then circled his finger, appreciating the soft moan he got. “That’s it. We have all night. And you are very, very pretty like this.” 

Chris rolled his eyes at the ‘pretty’ comment, and Mark retaliated by pressing lightly on his prostate. “Mm. Learning your way around.” He rocked his hips, taking Mark’s finger deeper. 

“I’ve been reading up.” Chris started laughing, but Mark ended it on a moan by pushing another finger into him. “Tell me what you like about this.” 

“Are you kidding?” 

“I haven’t bottomed yet. Gotta learn somehow.” Mark spread his fingers carefully, hoping that would be motivating. 

“Nnngh. That. The stretch.” 

“Getting opened up.” Mark whispered into his ear. “Or is it about being vulnerable to me?” 

“Both.” Chris whispered, his eyes drifting shut. One of Mark’s arms was under his head, and he reached up and laced their fingers together. 

Mark spent some time on the prep, figuring out exactly what Chris had meant, watching his face closely. Thought about the ways to open Chris up, make him crazy, give him the stretch he liked. “Ever been fisted?” 

Chris jolted, his body tight as a wire, then relaxed again. “Jesus, Mark.” 

Mark opened his fingers until he got a moan. “Well? Have you?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Never – ah – trusted anyone enough.” 

Mark added more lube, pushed his fingers back in, watched Chris’ face as he did. Of all the expressions, the lip-biting might be what finally did him in. “It’s a shame my hands are so big.” 

There was another laughing moan. “Come on, Mark. You can fuck me open the rest of the way.” 

“That does not sound wise.” Mark let himself be pulled on top of Chris, though, crouching between his legs. He quickly lubed himself up, and Chris put a hand down and got involved, and Mark did some moaning, himself. 

“Push in slowly. Just until-” Chris jerked and shouted when the head of Mark’s dick pushed in suddenly. “God, that’s good. Now hold still a minute and kiss me.” They kissed, and after a bit, Chris wrapped his legs around Mark’s hips and pulled him gently forward, maybe an inch. “Mm. You feel huge.” He gasped. “Pull back out, then push in a little further-” 

“All right, I get it.” Mark told him, catching on. “You are counting on control I’m not sure I have.” 

Chris’ eyes were barely open, and he was sprawled out on the bed. “Move. Please. This thing where you go still makes me insane.” 

“Does it, baby?” Mark started moving, a little deeper each time, and damn, that was good. He lost himself in it, the careful movements setting off soft noises in Chris, and more pleasure echoing to him, and he started working Chris’ cock because this was not going to take long, and Chris started with the loud noises he loved, and he thrust in harder, and Chris was begging him and he couldn’t stop, and then Chris came, wrapping his arms and legs around Mark and Mark let himself go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey man.” Martinez said. “I came over to check out your new digs, and you weren’t here. Come to find out your new PA is gonna be alone for Thanksgiving. What’s wrong with you? That’s no way to treat someone who has your social security number.”

Chris swanned into the lab at NASA bright and early the next morning, carrying a cup of well-remembered lousy coffee from the cafeteria, wearing a lab coat over his tee shirt (“It's not rocket surgery!”) and jeans. With the beard and the longer hair, people didn't immediately recognize him, and that was amusing. He currently didn’t have an office, because Teddy Sanders was a prick, but that was okay, he’d have two empties to choose from by noon. He’d spoken to the head of security and they were standing by to escort or drag people out of the building as needed. Or break up a fight. 

He didn't think anyone would take a swing at him, considering he'd broken someone's face last month, but he kind of wished they would. 

There was an empty bench in the corner of the main lab with a stool in front of it, so he settled there, put his feet up, and watched the dynamics for a while. It was interesting; all the worker bees noticed him, recognized him, and kept their heads down. No one asked him why he was there, offered him a better seat, said hi, nothing. Lack of curiosity in a lab was not cool. Something else on his list of things to fix. 

Finally he was in charge of the Ares lab. Able to take care of his crew AND turn what they’d gone through into something useful for humanity to benefit from. He and Sutherland already had a couple ideas for bone density improvement to try out, and he hadn’t even gotten the SpaceX and NASA teams together for ideas, yet. 

And then Chen walked in and started a staff meeting. “All right. We’ve got new assignments, because as it turns out, Beck DID get hired yesterday, and is due any minute.” 

Unobservant scientists made Chris sad. It was the opposite of what they were supposed to be. He tossed his empty coffee cup in the trash and stood. “Yeah. About that.” 

Chen visibly jumped. Then he tried to assert his authority, because that’s what assholes like him did. “Oh. Didn’t see you, Beck. I’ve been thinking, you can start by reviewing all our data-” 

Nice try; they could bury him in data for the next year without much effort. “Yeah, no.” Chris ambled to the front of the room, where Chen was. He’d debated with himself over doing this in front of people, and decided he wanted to make a point. This way the story would be around NASA within the hour and save him a lot of time and discussion in the long run. It wasn’t like Chen deserved respect anyway. 

“Look.” Chen said, nose in air. “I’m in charge here, and-” 

“You’ve been taking unauthorized tissue samples from astronauts, usually while they were unconscious, for at least ten years. I got into your personal notes.” Well. Johanssen had. Same difference, really, for his purposes. “Rule one, no more unethical bullshit.” There was a sort of shift in the room and he turned, looked out over a lot of surprised faces (and in the back, a few pleased ones). “Take it seriously, people, because I am not kidding.” 

“See here-” Chen tried to take control again. 

Chris rolled right over him, not raising his voice. “Your personal records and all evidence I could find have been turned over to the federal licensing board. You’ve got until noon today to turn in a letter of resignation to NASA, or you’ll be fired.” 

“You can’t do that.” Chen almost-shouted. 

“Yeah, actually, I can. Even if I can’t, federal will have your license to practice medicine pulled by next week at the latest, at which point NASA has no use for you and you’ll be gone anyway. It’ll be a lot messier that way, with loads more gossip, but it’s up to you. There’s also the risk of the media getting wind of it and speculating. Or filing Freedom of Information Act requests for all the gory details; you do remember this is technically a federal agency and FOIA applies? Security is waiting at your office to escort you out of the building. Remember to take only personal effects when you’re packing up.” 

“You can’t do this.” Chen repeated. 

Chris let himself laugh and shake his head. It was amazing, how people didn’t learn. “You’d be amazed at what I can do. Get out.” 

Chen stormed out, and Chris leaned out into the hall and caught the eye of one of the security guys he had waiting. Security gave a slight smile, nodded, and two of them peeled off to follow Chen. 

When Chris turned around, Helm had tried to take over the meeting. “We’ll investigate whether this is legal, but in the mean time, continue with your work, as we’ve planned-” 

“Actually, don’t.” Chris told everyone easily. He shook his head. “Helm, same deal for Chen goes for you. Your records are also with federal licensing, this time for withholding medications and ignoring standard treatment guidelines for, well, everything. Security’s waiting, clear out your office, resignation by noon, and so forth.” 

Helm was meaner than Chen, which didn’t surprise Chris because you had to be some kind of sadistic asshole to withhold FDA approved medications from people for no good reason. “Try it and I’ll end you.” 

“You can try.” Chris answered easily. Compared to the director of NASA gunning for him, one unethical doctor was barely a blip on his radar. 

“You only care because you’re fucking your research subject.” 

Chris really wanted to break his face, but shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes at the guy instead. “Ignoring the fact you’re calling a human being a ‘research subject’, you’ve done the same unethical ego trip to dozens of others that you did to him. If Mark Watney didn’t exist, I’d still be tossing you out of here and turning evidence of your crap doctoring over to the feds. Bye now.” He gave a short whistle and two more security guards appeared in the door. 

“This isn’t over.” Helm snarled at him, and stormed out, shoving past security, who followed him. 

Everyone was standing around, jaws hanging. 

Chris turned and addressed the room. “Now then. I did that here, in front of all of you, to underline the fact that I’m not putting up with unethical or illegal behavior. From anyone. Understood?” He was expecting trouble from Chen and Helm’s assistants, but he’d give them the rope to hang themselves. Who knew, they might turn out to be solid scientists he was happy to have. 

He doubted it, but he’d walked on Mars. Anything was possible. 

There was lots of nodding. 

“Right now all of you are getting the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure a lot of other questionable things have been going on here, but given your leadership, it was kind of inevitable. You’re now on notice. Clean it up, or transfer somewhere else. Going forward, keep it clean or I’ll be down on your ass. We clear on that?” 

More nodding. 

“All right. After lunch, I want each of you in my office, fifteen minutes at a time, say hi, give me a description of what you’re doing here. ‘Doing here’ in the literal sense of what your job is, as well as a quick rundown of how you got here in the first place. You can figure out what order among yourselves. Alphabetical, draw straws, whatever. Questions?” 

Small hand in the back. 

“Yes?” 

“Do you want the interns, too?” 

“Yes. Interns are as much a part of the staff as anyone else. You worked your butts off to get here and are putting in ridiculous hours. I’m working on getting you a raise, but at the least you’ll be getting respect. I want to meet all of you.” 

“Who’s in charge when you’re not here?” Chen’s assistant asked. Because of course she did. 

“I’ll get back to you on that, but for now, I’m going to treat you like adults who don’t need someone leaning over their shoulder every second.” That got some smiles, mostly from the interns and lower-authority scientists and lab techs. He waited to be sure there were no more questions. “All right, here’s my phone number, in case anyone needs to contact me, ever.” He scrawled it out at the top of a dry-erase board. “Obviously, show some discretion for its use, but don’t hesitate to text or call if there’s a real issue. In the next few days I’ll be laying down more concrete rules, but you’re all smart people. You can figure out not to text me at three AM over an interesting bacteria culture.” He paused and smiled. “Wait until seven. Then send me a picture.” 

A few chuckles at that, so he was doing all right. 

“Okay, everyone. Go prep for your meetings with me this afternoon, I’ll see you after lunch.” 

They were all still in shock, because he managed to sweep out without anyone stopping him with dumbass questions or sucking up. Sullivan, the head of security for the labs was out in the hall, and Chris gave him a sideways head jerk and then walked alongside him. “How’s it going?” He asked quietly. 

“Both doctors are enraged, Chen’s thrown some stuff though not at anyone, Helm’s screamed at Sanders AND his lawyer by phone. Neither of them have gotten violent, other than the throwing.” 

About what Chris had expected. “All right. Let them know they have until eleven AM and then they’re getting chucked out physically.” 

“Will do.” 

Chris’ phone buzzed and he glanced at it. It was a strongly-worded demand for a meeting with Teddy, immediately. “And then the next crisis.” He turned back to security. “Thanks for the assist. I know it’s your job, but it’s still appreciated.” 

The guy laughed. “It’s nice to have our days shaken up.” He held out a hand. “Good to have you back, Doctor Beck.” 

Chris let himself finally smile at someone. “Thanks. It’s mostly good to be back. And it’s just Beck, to my friends.” They shook hands. 

That got a big smile. “Sully.” They nodded. It was nice to have someone happy with him today. 

–

“What in bloody hell are you doing, Beck?” Teddy demanded. 

At least he hadn’t had to wait around this time. “Getting rid of two doctors with no ethics.” Chris tossed a thumb drive on Teddy’s desk. “Evidence against them, it’s already been turned over to the licensing bureau. You can use it to counter-sue if you need to, but seeing as they’ll lose their medical licenses any second now, you’ll come out of this looking golden as long as you profess shock and horror at what they were doing.” He let himself glare at Teddy. “I assume you ARE shocked and horrified by doctors here breaking the law and abusing their patients.” 

Teddy glared at the thumb drive. 

“Given there were THREE doctors treating Watney who’ve now had their licenses pulled, you may want to take a serious look at the other departments. Because I guarantee everyone else will. If the media gets wind, they can access nearly all this data under FOIA; this is considered a federal agency, might want to keep that in mind, too.” He couldn’t help but sneer a little. “I’m sure Montrose will get a charge out of spinning it for you.” 

“Get the fuck out of my office.” Teddy snarled. 

“Have a nice day.” Chris said as cheerfully as possible, and went out, heading for his next big shakeup. 

–

Chris’ phone buzzed again while he was getting more coffee. It was Mark. 

-How’s it going?  
-Fun. Helm and Chen threatened me, Teddy swore at me.   
-You get all the good stuff.   
-You can visit my office next week and cause mayhem.   
-Hahaha I just might. 

–

Mark had started doing his PT first thing in the morning, so he didn’t have to dread it the rest of the day. The worst thing about it was, he was feeling better and it was working. Which meant he had to keep doing it. Ugh. When he returned to his office, the door was open (per his direction), and he could hear Hannah laughing from down the hall. That was nice. There was a low voice, and another laugh, and he walked in and- “I should have known.” 

“Hey man.” Martinez said. “I came over to check out your new digs, and you weren’t here. Come to find out your new PA is gonna be alone for Thanksgiving. What’s wrong with you? That’s no way to treat someone who has your social security number.” 

“Major-” Hannah said, then broke off and looked between the two men, almost guiltily. 

“I didn’t know.” Mark told Martinez. 

“Why the hell not?” Martinez demanded. 

Hannah looked like she wanted to sink into the floor. 

“First of all, I’ve never had a PA before. I don’t know what the rules are.” Mark pointed out. “Second, because of that, I’ve tried to respect Ms Wilson’s privacy and give her some time when she’s not having to deal with me and Chris up in her business so she can pretend to have a personal life. Such as vacation days. Those seem like days she should not have to deal with us. And did I mention? Never had a PA before? What the fuck do I know?” 

Martinez shook his head. “That’s pitiful. Fuckin’ pitiful. I’ve invited her to Thanksgiving at our place. She’s trying to not intrude or something polite, obviously she’s never been to my house before. Talk her into it.” He glanced at his watch. “Now I’ve gotta run, because you weren’t here like you were supposed to be.” He gave Mark a quick hug, repeated his invitation to Hannah, and left. 

“I’d apologize for Martinez, but if I started, I’d never get done.” Mark told his PA. 

She giggled. “It’s all right. He’s great.” 

“May I speak to you in my office, Ms Wilson?” Mark asked formally. She looked worried as he ushered her in and told her to sit in the casual seating area away from his desk. “Coffee? Tea? Soda?” 

“Uh.” Hannah looked completely out of her depth. “Pepsi?” 

Mark made himself some coffee, got her a bottle and a glass of ice, got them settled. “Now. I guess I should have explained something.” 

“Yes?” Now she looked really apprehensive, and Mark let it go. Maybe this way she’d take what he said to heart. 

“We should have warned you sooner, I guess. Chris and I? We have no ability to separate work and personal relationships.” He smiled a little. “My best friends are also the people I’ve worked most closely with. Heck, I’m living with one of them. I still socialize with dozens of people over at NASA. Once your job has you live with your co-workers in a tin can for literally years, it gets hard to draw lines between job and life.” 

Hannah relaxed a little. “Oh. Of course. I understand.” 

“So that said, what’s the deal? Don’t have family in town?” 

“Uh. Mr Musk asked me to be your PA, moved me here, I was working at the SpaceX office in LA.” 

“How long have you been in town?” 

“Two weeks.” 

“Family’s back in LA?” 

“Mostly.” She shrugged. “Don’t have time to get out there and back for Thanksgiving, like I will at Christmas. Planned to spend the long weekend sleeping.” 

“We’d really like you to come to Martinez’ to share Thanksgiving with us. This year there’ll be some people his wife, Marissa, works with, and a couple singles from the Ares Five crew that Martinez is adopting. You won’t be the odd one out or anything like that. It probably feels weird to socialize with your bosses, but we’re hopeless and you might as well get used to it. I honestly can’t believe we even tried to be professional. We suck at it.” 

Hannah stared into her drink for a long moment. “You aren’t anything like I expected you to be.” 

“Let me guess, the public image thing?” 

“Sorta, yeah. Doctor Beck won a Nobel prize this year. You’re world famous. You’re both brilliant. Mr Musk hired you personally, actually head-hunted you. Neither of you seem to remember any of that.” 

“I’ll tell you a secret. Fame? Is a massive pain in the ass.” 

She laughed. “Okay, yeah. I’ll come to Thanksgiving. What do I need to bring?” 

“I haven’t the slightest idea. I’ll give you Marissa’s number. One last thing.” 

“Yes?” 

“Start calling us Mark and Chris, or we’ll start calling you Ms Wilson.” 

Hannah laughed. “All right, you win. Mark.” 

–

Mark got a ride home with a car and driver from the motor pool. He’d had another goddamn spinal massage that morning and he felt like someone drove a truck over him, so fuck it, he went home early. Chris was stuck at NASA indefinitely, taking over the Ares lab, so Mark plowed through a pint of ice cream on the back porch, tried to catch up on the doings of the SpaceX botany lab (they had a hand-lettered sign on the door, “Plant Freaks IN SPACE”, Mark was gonna love them), and fell asleep. 

-and woke up in the HAB. Sol one-fifteen, and he’d had the most vivid dream. Impossibly, the Hermes had come back for him and he’d been rescued through some crazy-ass jerry-rig of the Ares Four MAV that was thousands of miles away. He shook his head at himself; there was no way any of that would ever work. Then he wound up living with Beck. It sort of made sense, Beck was the prettiest crew member on the Hermes, and Johanssen AND Lewis would rip his balls off if he tried anything with Johanssen who felt like his sister anyway, but wow, his brain was really coming up with wild and crazy- 

He startled awake, and Beck was crouched in front of him, hand on his knee, saying something. Mark looked around and he was on a porch, and it was raining, and Beck- 

Chris. He was on the back porch of the condo, and Chris was home now. He leaned forward and rested his head on Chris’ shoulder. “Fuck.” 

“Sorry.” Chris ran his fingers up through Mark’s hair. “Didn’t mean to scare you half to death. It’s late and we’ve got pizza on the way, thought I’d wake you up. Rain’s starting to blow in on you.” 

“’S okay. Was in the middle of a dream. Fucked up dream. I hate my brain.” Mark got a kiss, that helped, so he took Chris’ face in his hands and kissed him some more. Yeah. That was good, better than all the shrinks and psych meds in the world. They stayed there, kissing, for a while, and the doorbell rang. Damn it. 

“That’s the pizza. I’ll grab it, meet me in the dining room?” 

“Yeah.” Chris hopped up and took off, the healthy bastard, and Mark slowly levered himself out of his orthopedic chair, feeling joints pop and muscles protest. He found himself limping as he made his way to the table, and decided he didn’t care. 

Chris already had plates and drinks and everything laid out, and pulled out a chair for Mark. “How bad?” 

He really thought it was the dream causing him to tense, and the massage that morning, trying to kill him in combination. Add in the damp chill from the rain. “Not great.” 

“Eat a little, I’ll be right back.” 

Mark blearily had half a slice, trying not to think of waking up in the HAB every morning, alone, with another day of trying to stay alive with no hope of rescue in front of him. Fuck. Chris returned, and laid out two pills, a bottle, and a syringe on the table in front of him. “Hoofuckingray.” 

“The injection’s optional. But it’ll work faster, better, and along with the other med, will be more effective than anything else.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Chris had never been wrong about treatments, and while Mark still hated needles, he was getting used to them. Fuckin’ desensitization. It worked. You didn’t hate what you were desensitized to any less, but the anxiety attacks tapered off pretty dramatically. BRAINS WERE FUCKING STUPID. 

“All right.” He gathered up his plate, the pizza, and the drinks. “We’ll eat in bed, that way when the meds kick in I don’t have to try to move you.” 

“They’ll work that well?” Mark followed along with his own plate. 

“Should.” 

Mark stripped down, crawled into the bed Chris had already turned down, and got comfortable. He took the pills Chris gave him, and followed with a bite of pizza. 

“One other thing.” Chris said cautiously, rolling the bottle between his hands. 

“Yeah?” 

“A massage would help you relax. Sex could, too.” 

“You want me to consent before you shoot me up with whatever that is.” Mark was used to Chris’ views on drugged sex by now. 

“Yeah.” 

“We’ll play it by ear, but if I’m in the mood later, then it’s absolutely fine.” Mark couldn’t imagine feeling in the mood, but Chris had worked magic before. 

“All right.” 

He never got the sex. Or the massage. Instead he got texts from Johanssen and Martinez, who’d apparently gotten a photo from Chris, of him asleep with a slice of pizza in his hand. 

–

Hannah was waiting for them the next morning with mugs of coffee and news. “Two things. CNN wants to do an in-depth interview, with either Mark or both of you, to celebrate the two year anniversary of you returning to earth. They would LOVE to have both of you. Adore I think is a word that was used.” 

“Ugh.” Mark thought about it. “Yeah, I’ll take it. After all the bullshit they went through to rescue me, the planet kind of deserves an update. We can do it here in the office, get it over with. Just me, no reason to waste your time too.” He told Chris. 

“Up to you.” 

“I’ll arrange it.” Hannah nodded. “Next, social media has exploded with rumors of the two of you, uh, being together during the Hermes mission. Lots of innuendo.” 

“Do you know when it started up?” Chris asked. 

“Yesterday afternoon, near as I could track back.” 

“Probably Chen or Helm, or both, in a snit. Teddy wouldn’t do it, it might make NASA look bad.” Chris told them. 

“Right, I’ve got this.” Mark pulled out his phone, opened up his public Twitter account. (Johanssen had been brilliant and set up accounts for them, independent of NASA, about a year before they left Earth. At the least, it had kept anyone else from using the names until they wanted them.) He started typing, and Chris and Hannah leaned over her monitor, watching Twitter in real time. 

Pirate King @WatneyAres3   
It’s sweet how everyone thinks I was capable of shenanigans in space. I couldn’t even eat solid food for the first two months. I think I’m flattered. 

He knew it was live when Chris and Hannah started laughing. 

“Anything else?” Chris asked Hannah. 

“You both have lunch with Mr Musk in the executive cafeteria at eleven, and there’s a holiday party going on in the main cafeteria starting at noon.”

“So we’re not getting jack shit done today.” Mark interpreted. 

“Pretty much.” Hanna agreed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what do you think?” Elon Musk asked.
> 
> “It’s all been worth it to watch Chris raise hell at NASA.” Mark said, he and Musk laughed and clicked their drinks together. Chris shook his head at them.
> 
> “Word has gone out that there’s something very wrong with NASA medical.” Musk shook his head. “I’m starting to see why you came to me, Mark, and while I was happy to help, of course, I’m sorry to hear it. You both might want to decide how to deal with it when the mainstream media puts it all together. With as much buzz as it’s getting in the aerospace community, it’s only a matter of time.”
> 
> “Fuuuuck.” Mark snarled into his plate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason I read The Martian in the first place (before I saw the movie), was a good friend conned me into it with 'the main character is a botanist'. When I was in college I answered to the title 'plant freak'. There was no way I could NOT write the Botany Lab. I got a little carried away. 
> 
> Also, I didn't set out to end every chapter with smut, but it almost works out that way. Oops? Haha.

“So what do you think?” Elon Musk asked.

“It’s all been worth it to watch Chris raise hell at NASA.” Mark said, he and Musk laughed and clicked their drinks together. Chris shook his head at them.

“Word has gone out that there’s something very wrong with NASA medical.” Musk shook his head. “I’m starting to see why you came to me, Mark, and while I was happy to help, of course, I’m sorry to hear it. You both might want to decide how to deal with it when the mainstream media puts it all together. With as much buzz as it’s getting in the aerospace community, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Fuuuuck.” Mark snarled into his plate.

“You have Rae’s number, yes?” Musk double checked. “Call her whenever you need her. She’s brilliant and has excellent ideas that we techs never think of.”

They ate for a while. Finally Musk couldn’t wait a second longer and asked like a little kid, “What are your thoughts on the space station?”

Chris smiled a little. “I’m still working through the preliminaries for the Moon, and went over the plans for the space station first, since that’s the most immediate project pending.” He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen. “I’ve sent you the full workup I’ve done for potential staffing and outfitting of the medical portion. With the thought that any medical emergencies would wind up on the station rather than Earth, if there was an accident on the Moon during construction-”

“Yes, of course.” Musk nodded.

“-ideally we’d need a dedicated air lock, or one that could be dedicated in the case of emergency, with a direct route to medical. An area of the hub in zero G for triage would be good. We learned from Mark, zero G is the best thing to offer for some injuries.”

“Busted ribs and acceleration sickness.” Mark explained to Musk, who winced in sympathy.

“ER as soon as you reach medical from the hub, OR somewhere nearby, both of them closest to the outside of the ring for the strongest gravity. It’s damn hard to find a source of bleeding in low Gs. We’ll have to train staff on that, among other things. Anyway. On my wish list is a portable IV pump that doesn’t take up a lot of space, so we can move patients around more easily; Mark spent a lot of time tethered to the wall in our Sick Bay, which made both of us bonkers for different reasons.”

“He wanted me in zero G. I was bored as fuck.” Mark put in helpfully, and Musk smiled.

“A hyperbaric chamber would be invaluable sooner or later, although we can always re-purpose an air lock. Problem is, then the air lock is down, and I really don’t like having injured people or my medical staff one breached seal away from vacuum. If we put one of the dorms next to medical in the second ring, we can re-purpose it as a ward if needed for a mass trauma event and the reduced gravity would aid healing. Otherwise two or three beds would be plenty, and two of those could be bunks, since the low G makes moving injured patients around easier.”

Musk was beaming, which Mark found odd considering Chris had asked for about a jillion dollars’ worth of stuff that wasn’t on the plans.

Chris shrugged. “I can go on for days, but the full proposal is on your electronics now, you can go over it, tag me any time. Mark and I even did some preliminary layout drawings for a starting point. I’ll be at NASA for a few hours on Friday, I can pop over here if you need me. I also had a question or two about staff.”

“Of course.” Musk said easily. “Given the high standards both of you have, I’m inclined to say hire whoever you want, but I’m curious about who you have in mind, specifically.”

“First is a kid over at NASA. He’s got a similar background to me, in that he’s young and well-educated and has written a couple really interesting papers. He’ll never make it to space because of a minor heart valve issue, but he was the only person in the Ares lab to raise any kind of question over ethics when Chen started his reign of terror. He got banished to Serology for it. Even there he’s managed to come up with something interesting enough for another paper, and it’s not his field.”

“Hire him. Certainly.” Musk agreed.

“Well, the real question is, can I keep him on at NASA and bring him over here too? He’d be really useful for coordinating between the two labs, when I’m off doing other stuff.”

“Ah.” Musk thought about it, nodded. “We’ll try it. For now, keep him on the Ares data only, until he gets a feel for things, and we get a feel for him. I don’t want him slipping and revealing data to NASA. But those two labs are supposed to be sharing, anyway, so for that he’d be ideal.”

“Thanks. The other person, she’s a trained ER nurse, former Army, active duty, saw action. Has more PTSD training than I do.”

“Slep?” Mark asked him, grinning. Oh yeah, they needed Slep in Houston. She’d kick everyone into shape.

“Yeah.” Chris confirmed.

Mark turned to Musk. “She was my nurse at Mass General when I broke my ankle. I’m pretty sure she was grown in a lab to be the perfect nurse, and is psychic as well as hyper-efficient and plain nice. Sense of humor, completely unflappable. She’s like a woman nurse version of Chris.”

“If she’s willing to re-locate, we’ll take her.” Musk agreed.

“I wondered if we could train her for the Space Station.”

Slep in space. Mark started laughing. “Oh my god, she’d be perfect.”

“With your recommendation, both of you, we can certainly put her through the program.” Musk said diplomatically. “Of course you, of all people, know there are all sorts of factors that I have no control over.”

“I understand.” Chris smiled. “I don’t think she’d let herself have something like vertigo. Unless she’s got an unknown health issue, she’ll power through the program cheering the whole way.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.” Musk told them both. They’d finished their meals by now, and were picking at sweets and drinking coffee someone had appeared with. “And you, Mark?” Musk looked a little like a kid on Christmas morning, turning to hear what Mark had to say.

But no pressure.

“I think we should tweak the environmental systems for the Station. Nothing major, they’d work as-is, don’t sweat that. None of the stuff I have in mind would increase costs by that much. But there are things we could do before it’s built, and during, to make maintenance and fixing it later on easier. I’ve found that the enginerds back on Earth don’t put enough thought into the possibility of in-flight repairs, and there are a lot of things that can be done, fairly easily at low cost, that make things a lot simpler, later. It’s not really their fault. Until you live in that environment for a while, you can’t understand what repairs are like.”

“Good lord, yes.” Chris said into his coffee. At Musk’s look, he explained, “I was the one crawling all over the exterior of Hermes, keeping her going the whole way home from Mars.”

“And then coming in and looking after Mark.” Musk said.

Chris shrugged at that.

“He didn’t have to do the EVAs. Vogel was qualified and willing.” Mark stepped in to explain. “He loves them. Lewis gave him all the EVAs he wanted and was physically able to do, as a stress relief for dealing with me.”

Musk laughed long and low, shaking his head. “EVAs as stress relief.”

“He’s a hell of an adrenaline junkie, for that whole New England bedrock Ivy League prodigy background.” Mark put in, and Musk laughed some more. “One reason I’m pushing him to go back up, I’m afraid to see what he does otherwise. Sky diving, or Formula One. Base jumping. High stakes poker, maybe. He has the face for that.”

Chris was trying to glare, and Mark smiled at him. Musk chuckled.

“If we could have a dedicated area for experimental habitats on the Station, we could learn a lot for the Moon. It doesn’t have to be that big, but if we put in lights, equipment, extra water lines before we start, it’d make all the things I want to try easier. Somewhere in the station that gives us similar gravity to the moon. Years ago, NASA did a study to evaluate plants for space, what would work best, you know. Except their only criteria were air quality and ability to grow in zero gravity. I don’t know what they were thinking. I’d like to shift us over from ferns and flowers and other nonsense to food plants. Four hundred thousand kinds of plants in the world, we ought to be able to shift over to edibles, even if they don’t all taste good. You never know what you're going to need to eat, one day. Then, I’m trying to figure out how to grow algae and mosses in a way that won’t leave an incredible mess if the gravity goes off. Maybe some kind of gel… no one’s tried trees, small ones, of course, and I can’t figure out why. Launch weight, maybe? Grasses, some produce a shitload of pollen which is not worth the mess, but we could try ones that don’t, and most of them have edible seeds too. We've got a guy who's pushing super-weeds because they're indestructible, we'll try some of those. Pesticide resistance doesn't mean it'll thrive in space, but we've gotta start somewhere. There has to be a way to rig an artificial wetland, clean up some of the water pollutants BEFORE it hits the purifier, save power and produce food and oxygen all at once-” He caught himself. “Well. You get the idea. We can work out a lot of details on the ground, then cycle things through on the Station, see what works, adjust from there. I’ve got a huge list of potentials, put it into a kind of proposal for you, it’ll be in your in box. I'm sure once the botany department sees my ideas, they'll have a thousand more.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted you for. Start implementing, let me know if you need more funding or more staff.”

“This is WAY different from NASA.” Mark told Chris, who laughed.

“I have a meeting scheduled with your botany department-”

“YOUR botany department.” Musk corrected.

Mark stalled for a second. “Okay, wow. My botany department on Monday. I’ve met a few of them in passing, but I think we’ll all get along fine, given the sign on the door.”

“I hadn’t seen that?” Musk said politely.

“Someone hand-made a sign that says ‘Plant Freaks IN SPACE’, and drew in vegetables that look like space ships. The head lab tech greeted me with ‘oh my fucking god, potatoes on MARS, you fucking crazy man’ and a fist bump when we were introduced. Yeah. I’m not expecting any problems.”

Musk laughed.

“Botany could use a greenhouse. They're already on the ground floor and have an outside wall, I think we could knock out part of a wall, build the thing right onto where they already are. Might seem insane but it would be less fuss than moving the department, especially since we have to build the greenhouse, no matter where we put it. I’m also scheduled to meet with the environmental engineers on Monday, I’ll bring up my suggestions, we’ll see how that goes, too. Still looking for a research assistant, but one will turn up.”

Musk sat back and sighed, smiling happily at both of them. “Signing you on was an even better idea than I first thought. It’s going to be a pleasure working with you.”

“I think you were right.” Mark admitted.

“About?” Musk asked.

Mark found himself grinning. “This is gonna be fun.”

Chris laughed, and all three of them clicked their coffee mugs together.

–

The party was in full swing when they got to the cafeteria, and as they stood in the door, taking in the massive buffet and the dance party, a cheer went up. Both Chris and Mark looked around a little before realizing THEY were being cheered. “Hoo boy.” Chris muttered.

“I feel very under-motivated.” Mark told him. “And slightly freaked out.”

“Put in an hour, go home and sit on the porch?”

“We’re old. Yes, except I need to make the dressing for tomorrow.” He paused. “Wow, we’re REALLY old.”

“Ah, right, the Thanksgiving cooking. We’re going to discuss that. At length.”

Wait, what? Mark stood, confused, as Chris disappeared into the crowd.

“Hey.” Hannah said, appearing next to him. “Here.” She handed him a sandwich.

“You’re my PA, not my waitress.” Mark reminded her, but he took it.

“And you’re my boss, not a waiter, and yet you’ve brought me food and drink, so I’m considering it a mutual, friendly thing. Unless you don’t want to, in which case, get your own stuff.”

“Friendly is good.” Mark assured her. The sandwich was roast beef, and fantastic. “What the hell is going on?

“Mr Musk has security lock all the lab doors from noon today until opening of business on Friday. He does it for all holidays, there’s a big long rant about having lives he has posted on the web site. I can get it for you.”

Mark laughed. “No, that’s cool. Sounds like him.”

“Hit the buffet. It’s catered. The food is incredible; he does the same thing at all his facilities. The LA party is even more ridiculous. I usually have a sandwich and a handful of veggies and then graze off the dessert table all afternoon.”

Okay. Mark wished for an Ativan. Or ten. He still wasn’t good at crowds, even after two years back among people. Crowds of strangers were doubly hard. He took a breath, patted his pocket for his pill container (it was there), and headed toward the drinks. Chris met him in the middle of the crowd, headed back to him with a ginger ale. He leaned in close, making it look intimate and sexy, and said “take a damn pill” in his ear.

Mark nodded and did.

After it kicked in, it got kind of fun. The food WAS good, even the vegetables Chris kept foisting on him. If he stayed on the edge of the crowd, he didn’t feel swamped, but people still felt comfortable coming over to chat, or introduce themselves.

One of the first was a kid with a bright green mohawk and dandelions tattooed on his scalp. He introduced himself as ‘Ishi’. Mark was unsurprised to find out he was part of the botany department, and they chatted for a while about how excited everyone was to have him in charge and apparently since they’d gotten the word, they’d been making lists for him. Not of stupid Mars questions or fame bullshit, but things they wanted to try on the Station, plants and configurations of them and growing methods. “Start thinking about how we can run an artificial wetland, without hell breaking loose if the gravity goes off. Maybe just run the damn thing in zero Gs in the first place.” Mark told him, and knew it was going to be great when the kid’s eyes lit up.

Chris wandered back with a plate full of desserts and stood next to him, plowing through it. Every time Mark tried to grab a bit, he shifted the plate away.

“What.” Mark demanded. “What did I do?”

Chris shoved an enormous bite of chocolate cake in his mouth and said “MMMM.”

Mark laughed. “You are such an asshole. Why are you mad at me?”

“You know how to cook.”

Ah. Mark inspected his glass of soda, looking for imperfections.

“Yeah. You dick. I’ve done all the cooking for how long?”

A year and a half, roughly. “But you’re better at it than I am.”

“Shut up.” Chris swatted Mark’s hand with his fork. “And get your own damn dessert.” He shoveled in more. “The bread pudding has pear preserves in it.”

“Right, I’ll be back.”

Hannah materialized again and shoved a plate of desserts in Mark’s hand. “Here.” She handed him a fork, too.

“Do you read minds?” Mark asked.

“No. I’m efficient.”

“Yes ma’am.” Mark agreed. Anyone bringing him food could call themselves whatever they wanted.

“I have bad news, and I don’t want to ruin the holiday party but the longer it waits the harder it will be to get out in front of.” Hannah told them baldly.

“Fantastic.” Mark said around a mouthful of bread pudding. There was vanilla sauce. It was amazing. “What now?”

“TMZ released a whole bunch of information about the war going on between you two and NASA medical, how three doctors have been fired, and how Chris broke one’s face. There’s also a video of you having an anxiety attack.” Hannah said gently.

“I suppose it was inevitable.” Chris mused.

“If you’d told ME, I might have been able to prepare for this.” Hannah frowned at them both. “People are calling the office for comments and I’m going ‘duh’, thank you so much.”

Mark ate more bread pudding, thinking. “Can you show me the video?” He finally asked. Chris exchanged looks with Hannah. Neither of them seemed too enthused by the idea. “Come on. I need to know what’s out there, to deal with it.” About then, both their phones started beeping and ringing with about a dozen texts, each. “Oh good, everyone else has seen it now, too.”

Hannah turned her phone to him, and he tapped play.

“FUCK.” Chris snarled.

It was about ten seconds of the beginning of his liver biopsy, which had ended in a full-on flashback, screaming, transfusions, and other emergency procedures. So much for his psych being private. Mark knew, KNEW the best way to deal with this, he just didn’t want to. Dammit. He called Johanssen.

She picked up on the first ring. “I can’t get it back, it’s already spread too far. Fucking TMZ, I swear I’m gonna fry their servers to the ground-”

“Do you still have a copy of the entire video? Start to finish, with audio?” The audio of his doctors being abusive assholes.

“Yes.”

“Post the entire thing. Send it to media outlets, all that shit. Can you?”

Hannah and Chris both looked worried, but neither tried to stop him.

“Are you sure?” Johanssen asked softly. “Once it’s out, it’s out. Permanently.”

Mark tried to be philosophical. “I’m expected to have PTSD anyway. And I refuse to be made to look like the problem in that video, because I was NOT the fucked up person, there.”

“All right. I’ll start with my Twitter account.”

“Thanks.” Mark told her, and hung up.

He logged onto Twitter and they waited.

SpaceNerdQueen @JohanssenAres3  
The entirety of the video TMZ recently posted. You will notice it paints a completely different picture. Shared at the request of Dr Mark Watney. (Unlike TMZ, I’m not an asshole.)

Retweets started immediately, of course, and soon the comments began. Overwhelming sentiment was with Mark, and the most common view was ‘that doctor better be one of the ones who got fired’. Then the whole mob went after NASA on what seemed like all social media outlets, screaming to know what had happened to the doctor in the video. The more clear-thinking were also demanding explanations on how it happened in the first place, and what NASA was doing to prevent it in the future.

“I’m gonna eat some more bread pudding, then we can go, right?” Mark asked Chris.

“Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”

Hannah squeezed both their hands. “I’ll keep an eye on this, tag you if anything major happens?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

She grinned. “I’m a geek. I spend a lot of time on Twitter anyway, keeping up with everyone in LA and everywhere else. It’s no problem to watch this while I’m talking to them.”

“Thanks.” Mark hugged her. “You're the best PA I've ever had.”

Hannah laughed.

Mark and Chris were sitting down with more plates of dessert (“We are gonna make ourselves sick.” “I don’t care. It’s a better choice than booze. You’re the one constantly after me to put on weight.”) when Rae and Annie Montrose showed up in the door of the cafeteria.

“We should have escaped.” Chris decided, as they were spotted and the women came over.

“This is what I get for wanting some more damned bread pudding.”

Rae looked politely concerned, which was her usual when she dealt with them. Montrose was enraged. Which was HER usual when dealing with them. She stalked over, furious, and began with “None of you assholes had permission to share that video, it’s proprietary NASA data. Do you have any idea how much of a shitfest this is going to be?”

Mark stared her down. “It’s video OF ME, so try getting the proprietary bullshit to stick, I wish you luck. If you go after Johanssen, I’ll start giving interviews to anyone who wants them. Where I will discuss this all IN DETAIL, and not details you want out. I will also turn loose the SpaceX lawyers, two of whom stopped me by the buffet table five minutes ago to beg for permission to go after you.”

Montrose was working up to some real rage when Chris broke in.

“Who released the first video?” He demanded. Oop, that was his doctor voice, they were screwed now.

“We don’t know. I don’t care. It’s this video-”

Chris interrupted Montrose again, still in doctor mode. “You had better care, or at least pretend to. It was the first video, which was a major, illegal breech of all privacy laws, that prompted us to release the entire thing. If you want to attack someone, find out who dropped that one. Furthermore, remember we aren’t NASA employees any longer and don’t have to put up with your abuse.”  
“Abuse?” Montrose demanded. “If you think THIS is-”

Mark interrupted. “I’m giving an in-depth interview to CNN next week about being back for two years. I am SURE this will come up. Find the leak, deal with it, and grow some manners, or I will be dropping all this in their laps, ALONG WITH MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON THE SUBJECT. You really don't want me sharing my thoughts on how NASA allowed public relations to help shape policy while I was stuck on Mars.”

That FINALLY made Montrose stop to think. “We need to discuss this, the interview, the spin-”

“We will. With Rae. Who is our PR person.” Chris told her. “You can coordinate with her, IF she wants you to. If so, keep it civil or we’re back to giving interviews you won’t be able to spin with a centrifuge. Now. It’s a holiday. Get out.”

Montrose gaped for a moment, then glared at Rae. “You will be hearing from me.” And she stalked out.

Rae sat down with them, smiling. “I suppose it’s wrong of me, but I enjoyed that.”

“Glad to help.” Mark told her.

“What can I do?” Rae asked. “Your release of the full video definitely puts the ball back in NASA’s court.” She laid a hand over Mark's arm. “I’m sorry it was so personal, but it was an excellent tactic.”

“Can you do a press release, that SpaceX is horrified or appalled or some other negative attitude toward the unauthorized leak of one of your employee’s medical records? With a demand for an FBI investigation into it?” Chris asked.

“Certainly.” Rae nodded. “My pleasure. I’ll word it as strongly as possible. Mr Musk will sign off, that will add weight and it's something he's happy to do.”

“Otherwise, can we ignore it? Is it going to get out of control?”

She thought about that. “I don’t think so, not as it stands right this minute. The full video shifts sympathy entirely to you and has everyone asking NASA hard questions about their medical program. If they have any sense at all, they’ll deal with that and leave you alone. Going after you will only make this look worse for them, and that’s BEFORE we do or say anything. You're both very intelligent about how PR works. Your methods are very successful, but if you ever want to double-check anything with me, feel free to call any time.”

They both stared at her.

It took a moment, then Rae smiled. “Annie's problem with you two has never been your methods. It's that she can't control you.” Now she let herself laugh, a bit. “My experiences with Mr Musk give me an entirely different view on what makes a client difficult.”

That made more sense than Mark ever expected anything in PR to make. “Okay. We’ll ignore it until something else goes sideways.”

“All right.” Rae smiled. “I’m sorry this happened, but I hope you have a nice holiday.”

“Thanks.” Mark told her wearily. “You too.” After she left, he turned to Chris. “Can we get the fuck out of here?”

“Shit yes.”

–

When they got home, Mark insisted they make the dressing before anything else, because once he sat down, he wasn’t going to move. He’d been right. “I can’t move.” Mark told him, starfished out on the chaise.

“We’re going to bed, for crying out loud. You only have to change rooms, and I’m not carrying you.”

“No, seriously, all those tensed muscles from earlier? They’ve solidified.”

“That is not how muscles work.” Chris held his hands out, waited until Mark grasped them, and pulled him up gently. “Get inside, and I’ll give you a massage.”

“None of the spinal shit.” Mark insisted.

“No, to relax you.” Chris got an arm around him and half-led, half-dragged Mark inside. He’d already turned down the bed, so it was short work to strip him down and let him roll in. “On your stomach.” Mark made a low noise and did. Chris threw a leg over and sat on his ass. “Too heavy?”

“No.”

He ran his hands up Mark’s back. “You’re like a statue. Fuck.” He started with Mark’s shoulders, and tried to work hard enough to make a difference but not so hard it would hurt badly. He worked outward down his arms because those were bad, too. “Emotional stress, or have you been in more pain than you let on?”

“Stress.”

Chris kissed the nape of his neck, and kept working slowly down Mark’s back. “You’re really putting on muscle again.” He traced an oblique, then leaned down and did it again with his tongue. “Sexy.”

“Mmm. I heard a rumor that if I put on enough weight, I could start sleeping all night.”

“Big motivator.” Chris shifted downward again, and dropped kisses in the dimples over Mark’s butt. Then he went to work on the gluteals. Mark made a soft noise in his throat and moved restlessly. Chris leaned forward, and said softly into his ear “Thinking of that massage you gave me, that made me scream?”

“Maybe.”

Chris knew the way Mark was shifting, now; he was nervous. He decided to enjoy it, and didn’t explain what he planned to do, smiling as he nipped Mark’s shoulder and going back to the massage. He went to his lower back, trying to get the muscles there to relax. “Do you want a muscle relaxant?”

“Rather have sex.” Mark’s voice was low and rough.

“Roll over.”

Mark did, blinking. Chris got up to dim the lights, crawled back onto the bed between Mark’s legs, put his hands on either side of Mark’s head, leaned down, and kissed him. Soft and slow, sighing when Mark’s hands came up to rest on his hips, pulled them down so they were rutting against each other. “Mmm. Nice.” He kissed his way down Mark’s body, pausing to kiss the heart tattoo he’d gotten recently. Mark squirmed. “Hurt?”

“No. The scars are sensitive.”

Chris bent his head and ran the point of his tongue along the scar he’d left on Mark’s body, and Mark sucked in a shocked breath. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Can’t believe you’re doing that.”

“I put it on you.” Chris licked again. He worked his way lower, and Mark started shifting restlessly again. He sat back on his heels, got out the lube, and squirt some in his hand. Mark’s eyes darkened. Chris reached down and slid a finger into him, no warning, no distraction, and watched as Mark shifted a little and made a low noise in his throat. “Very nice.” They’d only done this a few times, and not for long, but Mark had enjoyed it.

“What-” Mark shifted when Chris moved his finger.

“Seeing what you think. Getting you to associate it with pleasure, be used to it.” Chris told him. He moved his hand, loosening muscles, watched Mark’s breathing speed up. He leaned forward again and kissed Mark. “Worried you’ll end up bottoming tonight?”

“Not WORRIED, exactly?”

“I’ll end the suspense; we aren’t. Not tonight. But I’m getting you familiar with this. A few rounds of fingering will make it easier when you finally do bottom. Especially since I want you to enjoy it.”

“You bastard.” Mark said, chuckling, then broke off with a rough noise.

“Yeah, I'm really manipulative. I like anal sex, so I want you to enjoy it so you're willing to have it with me. Next I'll be nice to you because I want you to be happy.” He shifted his fingers, and Mark groaned, eyes fluttering shut. Interestingly, Mark didn’t relax at all, but pulled him down for another kiss. He started there and kissed his way down Mark’s body, licking and nipping. The nipping got little gasps and twitches, so he especially liked those. He got down to Mark’s dick and waited, breathing over him, as Mark shifted and moaned.

“Please.” Mark finally whispered.

Chris went down on Mark at the same time he slipped in a second finger, and the shout was really a turn-on. The hand fisted in his hair was one, too. He was beginning to understand why Mark didn’t mind how noisy he was. Any shift of the fingers inside him had Mark making broken noises, and he was using his hand in Chris’ hair to pull Chris down on his cock, almost face-fucking but still a little on the polite side. They’d get there yet, Chris had no doubt. He got his free hand around his own dick, and settled in to enjoy the ride.

It was Mark writhing and shouting and pulling his hair, tightening around his fingers, then shouting his name, that pulled Chris over the edge after him.

–

Mark’s whole body shivered without him, and he moaned a little. That had probably been an aftershock, the ones he found so fascinating in Chris. Chris, who was sprawled out over him, limp and half asleep, whose hair Mark still had in a death grip. He loosened his fingers and ran them through Chris’ hair a couple times. That got a quiet ‘mm’ and no movement at all. He grinned up at the ceiling, shivered again, and dozed off.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s a plant zoo. It’s not a lab. It’s a ZOO. They've got plants from all over the world, most of which have nothing to do with any of our research ... I’d wonder if Musk put the department together entirely to fuck with me, like a dream team, but most of them have been here for years. He just hires brilliant people.”

Thanksgiving at the Martinez house was controlled chaos. Cars were parked all up and down the street by the time they arrived, and Martinez greeted them at the door with drinks and a kiss on the lips for each of them. “Ooo, cooties.” Mark commented, and made his way back to the kitchen. Marissa greeted him with a hug and kiss, and put him in charge of the gravy ‘like your mama told me’. He grabbed a whisk and a pan, laid out the stuff he needed, and started some butter melting. Then he jumped in to help Marissa finish things up.

They were almost ready, and Mark was whisking the gravy while Marissa carved the turkey when Chris ducked in. “Hey. Hannah’s here.”

“Good.”

Chris watched him for a moment. “Look at you, whisking away like you know what you’re doing, you asshole.”

“Hey, hey. No name calling in my kitchen.” Marissa told him.

“He let me think he couldn’t cook for a year and a half, so I did all the cooking.” Chris told her.

Marissa turned on Mark. _"Tu pendejo."_

“I APOLOGIZED, OKAY?”

“You cook for him, for at least two years.” Marissa declared, glaring. “Maybe then you will be forgiven. You need to earn it."

Ugh. Busted. Thanks, Mom.

–

“I have concerns.” Martinez told them both under his breath.

“Concerns?” Mark replied. “I’m fuckin’ terrified.”

“You’re surprised? I knew this was going to happen. Wait until they meet Slep. They'll take over the world and run it in their efficient image.” Chris walked off to find some more wine.

“Slep?” Martinez asked.

“Nurse. She’s as good as Chris, we’re hoping she’ll relocate down here and be Chris’ sidekick.”

“Oh, fun. Can't wait.”

Across the room, Johanssen and Hannah were in a huddle, talking intently. As they watched, Johanssen said something and Hannah reached out and squeezed her hand, threw back her head, and laughed out loud.

–

“You going into work today?” Chris asked, sprawled out on top of Mark, happy and fucked out. It was Friday, and technically they had the day off at both NASA and SpaceX.

“Mm.” Mark stroked his hand down Chris’ back. “No, I’m gonna stay here, try to catch up on the botany department’s hijinks for Monday. I’m afraid to walk in there without a really solid handle on what’s going on; they’ll snow me for the fun of it.”

“Hijinks?” Chris repeated.

“I don’t suppose you remember, not your field. While we were training for Ares, an anonymous article was posted on Reddit, then everywhere, on how to safely extract the lactones from kava root. It was very obviously written by several really skilled people with advanced educations.”

“...no? Don’t remember that.”

“It’s an intoxicant. A fun one, safe. As safe as intoxicants get, anyway. Legal. It was my new botany department who did it, thankfully under assumed names. I suspect the ring-leader is the kid I met yesterday, the one with the green hair and the dandelion tats? He told me to call him Ishi.”

“Ah, yeah. He was kind of hard to miss.”

“He’s Doctor Mano Ishikawa. Four doctorates, mostly from the University of Hawaii, including one in biochemistry and another in ethnobotany. Meaning medical, religious, and recreational uses of plants. I’ve read a bunch of his papers. He’s brilliant, unconventional, and kind of nuts. The reason he landed here is because he's a brilliant geneticist and refuses to work for Big Ag. He could make at least quadruple his current salary at any of the big corporations.”

Chris laughed. “So an earth-bound you.”

“When you put it that way.”

“I’m going in to NASA, give the Ares lab some stern looks and some organization.” Chris rolled, kissed Mark on the lips, headed for the shower. “You can cook dinner tonight.”

“I suppose I deserve that.”

–

Chis was setting up his office with his new assistant when a call rang through. “Beck.”

“Hey, Doc. This is Sullivan, in security? A woman claiming to be your PA at SpaceX is here, demanding to see Director Sanders. We’re stalling, doing a background check, but she’s enraged. We’ll have to clear her or physically throw her out, and if we toss her, it’ll be a hell of a scene.” In the middle of the main entrance that was always full of tourists.

“Hannah Wilson. Young woman, white and brown, average height, really intelligent, purple hair?”

“That’s her.”

He wondered what that was about. Then he wondered what it would take for Hannah to be angry enough to come over to NASA, skip talking to him, and go straight for Teddy. “Shit. Stall her a little more, I’m on my way.”

“Yep.”

While he ran out of the building and across the quad, he called Johanssen. “I need you to record full audio and visual in Teddy’s office until I give you the all clear. I assume you can do that?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Thanks.” He hung up as he slid around the corner into security, and there she was, hands on hips, glaring. “What’s up?”

Hannah raised an eyebrow at him, then turned back to Sullivan. “Oh, I see, you thought THIS would get me to go away.” She leaned over and nipped a visitor’s badge off a rack behind the security desk, then stalked through the checkpoint and slammed her hand down on an elevator call button.

Unfortunately, things were quiet due to the holiday, the elevator dinged right open immediately, and Chris and Sullivan had to hustle to get on it before the doors shut again. She punched a button for the top floor. “You know,” she told Chris, “I watched all this drama unfold with NASA, and I was staying out of it, because clearly that was what you and Mark wanted. I respected that. But now they have involved ME. Personally.” She opened her bright pink messenger bag and pulled out a printed e-mail. “This was waiting for me at the office this morning. I am now part of the vendetta, and I am DONE.”

Chris glanced down at it; it was from Doctor Chen's NASA e-mail address. It was a warning, telling her that Mark Watney was unstable and dangerous, and her life was at stake if she continued to work with him.

The elevator door dinged, and Hannah walked out, all black, thick-soled Doc Martens and flowered dress, and stormed down the hall to the executive’s suite.

“How do you know where you’re going?” Sullivan asked her.

She sneered. “Scum always rises to the top.” She slammed through the doors of the Director’s office, and demanded of the assistant at the desk, “Is he in there?” At the slightly confused half-nod, Hannah kept going into the main office.

Chris and Sullivan exchanged glances and followed.

“Teddy Sanders, right?” Hannah asked, stopping directly in front of his desk.

“Who are you?” He demanded.

“Hannah Wilson, PA to Doctors Beck and Watney.”

Teddy’s lip curled. “I don’t have anything to say-”

Hannah pulled another copy of the e-mail out of her bag and slapped it on the desk in front of him. “I received this in my business in-box this morning. NASA has officially involved me in this testosterone-fueled pissing match and I am here to serve notice. You will end it, or I will.”

Teddy glanced down at the e-mail, and froze. Chris knew from years of dealing with him that he was genuinely shocked. “You’re in no position to be making demands, young woman.”

“The hell. I received a threat, from a NASA e-mail address. This is your single polite warning, get someone in here to investigate and clean house, figure out what’s going on, and FIX IT, before I call the FBI, report the threat, and FORCE you to clean it up.” She sneered. “You’re only getting the one warning because of my respect for Doctor Beck and Doctor Watney, and they don’t want this escalated.”

“This isn’t a threat, it’s a simple misunderstanding.” Teddy said dismissively.

“It says my life is at stake. I feel threatened. Therefore, it is a threat.” Hannah said between her teeth.

“Reads like a threat to me.” Chris offered.

“And I say it doesn’t.” Teddy replied. “Control your girl, Beck, and get her out of my office.”

Something flashed on Hannah’s face, something violent, and Chris and Sullivan both tensed, ready to jump and grab her before she did anything that would get her arrested. Instead, she pulled out her phone, hit two buttons, and while staring down Teddy, said “Hello. Yes. I want to report a death threat made against me? A NASA e-mail address was used, and the director is refusing to admit it’s a problem or act to secure my safety in any way. Yes, I feel very threatened, and his refusal to do anything makes me feel MORE threatened. Yes. Hannah Wilson, I work at SpaceX. Thank you. I’m in Director Sanders’ office at NASA. Yes, we’ll wait.” She clicked the phone off. “The FBI is on the way.”

“I will ruin you.” Teddy snarled between his teeth.

“Try it, and I will go after you on all of social media. You, personally. Want to play? We’ll play. First thing I’ll do is post this e-mail. Everywhere. I do not bluff. The FBI call should be proof of that.”

Chris exchanged a look with Sullivan. “Okay.” Chris said. “FBI’s on the way, might as well sit down and wait on them.”

“I’m calling legal.” Teddy announced.

Hannah leaned over and pulled the comm cable out of his computer.

They glared at each other some more. Teddy was starting to look nervous.

Sullivan got a buzz on his phone. “FBI’s here, they’ve been cleared through security and are on their way up.”

“I won’t forget this.” Teddy said to Chris.

Chris, fed up with the entire mess, start to finish, finally gave up on discretion and tact. “Control the assholes around here, and you won’t have a problem. I won’t forget this, either. Some jackass threatened a person working for me, and YOU don’t want to do anything about it? I’ll remember.”

–

Mark was in the kitchen when Chris got home. The first he knew, was from Hannah’s voice saying “I don’t want to intrude-” and Chris wearily replying, “Hannah. Get the hell in the house and share some dinner.” That didn’t sound good. Chris was always scrupulously polite to people who worked for him.

It was pouring rain, and Hannah and Chris were hanging up their raincoats when he walked into the living room. “Hey, Hannah.”

“Hi, Mark.” She looked angry, and tired, so that was great.

“We’re having drinks.” Chris announced. “Hannah, wine or beer?”

“Oh, it’s all right, there’s no need to fuss, I-” She raised her eyebrows at Chris when he growled at her. “Wine, please.”

“Show Mark the e-mail.” Chris told her, brushing past him into the kitchen.

Mark was handed a piece of paper, and. “Wow.” He read it again. “Is this a death threat?”

“I read it as such, yeah.” Hannah accepted a glass of wine, and at Chris’ glare, sat down hastily on the couch. “The way it’s worded, I can’t tell if you’re supposed to be the threat, or if the author is. I suspect English isn’t their first language, and whatever is, doesn’t use pronouns like English does.”

“I think I know who it was, but the FBI is investigating, so we’ll see.” Chris added. “I told them to start in the Ares lab and dig deep.”

Johanssen let herself in, tossed her coat over the rack, took Chris’ wine and had a sip, then said “Guys. What the actual fuck.”

Chris shrugged, went and got himself another glass of wine. “Beats the hell out of me. Hannah’s right, though, this got entirely out of hand. It’s time to involve the authorities.”

“It came out of the Ares lab, on Chen’s old account. IT hadn’t shut it down yet. But Chen wasn’t in the building when it was sent.” Johanssen told them.

“Yeah, that goes with my suspicions.” Chris wedged into the love seat with Mark and laid a hand on his knee. He relaxed a little when Mark’s hand came down over his and squeezed.

“I owe you both an apology.” Hannah said into her wine. “I should have told you both about the e-mail, decided what to do about it with you, not lost my temper and gone and bitched out one of your bosses. Do you want my resignation?”

“What?” Johanssen asked, completely blank.

Chris relaxed further into the love seat, tilted his head back. “It’s been a long day, so I’m ignoring that you even said that.”

Mark caught himself before he smiled. “No. We owe you an apology. We should have called in the authorities before you were involved, but we expected Teddy to do the right thing.”

“That was our first mistake.” Chris said to the ceiling. “He never does the right thing, he placates and makes peace, then he ignores it.”

“I’ve been researching.” Johanssen told them. “From what I can tell, as soon as we mutinied-”

“What?” Hannah asked.

“Later,” Mark told her.

“-all the research MDs in NASA started angling to get assigned to the Ares lab. The ones that succeeded were the most politically connected.”

“Not the most qualified.” Chris clarified.

“Right.” Johanssen agreed.

“Still.” Mark had to say, “Research doctors aren’t assholes. Look at Chris.”

“Beck is an exception in all things.” Johanssen reminded Mark. “And it’s NASA. People play politics to get ahead when they can’t do it on merit because they’re competing with geniuses.”

Chris gave a snort.

A timer dinged in the kitchen. “Right, that’s dinner.” Mark announced. When Hannah tried to excuse herself again, he said “Forget it. I cooked. Everyone to the table.” He turned to Chris. “You want me to cook, you get one-pot meals. Don’t like it, you can do it.”

“This is good. And actually healthy.” Chris promised him.

“You’re so married.” Johanssen told them both.

“Shut up.” They said in unison.

Hannah giggled.

They were finishing up beef and vegetable stew over brown rice when someone ELSE arrived.

“Hey, Mitch.” Mark let him in. “Want some stew?”

“Uh.” He tried to be polite, but Mitch looked kind of hungry, so Mark pushed him toward the table and went to get another bowl. Good thing he’d made extra to freeze; there wouldn’t be extra, but everyone got fed. “Thanks.” He cupped his hands around the warm bowl, inhaled the steam.

“Mitch Henderson, our PA from over at SpaceX, Hannah Wilson.” Chris said casually.

They nodded at each other.

“I got word, someone at NASA sent your office a threat?” Mitch double-checked.

“They sent Hannah a threat.” Mark corrected. “Depending on how it’s interpreted, I could be the threat.”

Mitch shook his head. “I’m sorry to hear that. It wouldn’t occur to Teddy to owe any of you an explanation, but I thought you deserved one.” He took a bite of stew. “You’re not a bad cook, Watney, but where’s the potatoes? Stew needs potatoes in it.”

“Fuck you.”

Mitch gave a half-laugh. “Someone in the senate heard from a leak at the FBI that things are out of hand at NASA. They’ve called in former director Bolden to do an independent investigation. They’re starting with the Ares lab, and working out from there.” He smiled brightly. “Teddy’s pissing his pants again. Sorry you’re dealing with such bullshit, sincerely, but I’m going to find this investigation entertaining as hell. I’ll keep you posted on how things shake down, but a full investigation into everything going on at NASA is going to take a while.”

“Mitch was the flight director of Ares Three. He had our backs through the rescue and all the political crap after.” Chris explained to Hannah.

“And in return they saved my career.” Mitch told her.

Hannah smiled a little. “I get the feeling rescues are what they do.”

“Damn straight.” Johanssen agreed, and the two women grinned at each other.

“Are you finding that friendship slightly terrifying?” Mitch asked Chris and Mark.

–

Chris watched Mark slowly moving around the bedroom with a limp, wincing as he pulled off his shirt, and moving gingerly. “Weather?” He asked.

“Yeah. Everything hurts, not only my damn back.”

“Strip off, get in bed, turn on a movie.” Chris went to the closet full of medical supplies and started pulling out heating pads and hot packs. “You know,” he said, returning, “a dedicated pain control specialist would be a good idea for you.” He started tucking heating pads around, over, and under all Mark’s known joint injuries, and plugging them in.

“I’m not spending the rest of my life drugged.” Mark grumbled, slouching down into the warmth. “Fun with nausea meds notwithstanding.”

“Good, because that’s not the goal of pain specialists. At your health level, the most important criterion would be quality of life, and you get to decide that, not the doctor.” Chris piled on some blankets to hold the warmth in. “The guy who did your nerve block would be a place to start.”

“Maybe.”

Chris rummaged through his medical bag and the drug stores, came back. “Non-narcotic pain meds. For everyday, you need to switch over to these.” He waited until Mark took them, then sat on the edge of the bed, paused the movie, and took his hand. “We’re going to do everything we can to help your body heal the damage from Mars. And given your age and history of good health, it’s probable some of this will clear up. But, Mark, you have to face that your body is going to have permanent changes. Especially your back.”

Mark shut his eyes and sighed, looking drawn and upset. “I know. Let me ignore it a while longer, okay? I’m still doing all the PT and diet stuff I’m supposed to, I’m not neglecting the healing process. Give me some time.”

Chris leaned in and kissed him, soft and gentle. “All right. If you talk to Scott this week.”

“I already have an appointment. After the fucking interview. I’m sure that’ll kick up a lot of memories I don’t want.”

“I love you.” Chris kissed him again.

“Good. I love you too. Now get in here and cuddle, and help me heckle this movie.” He turned it back on.

“Oh god, another Mars movie?”

“Hell yes. This one has aliens.”

“You are the only alien to ever live on Mars.”

“Shhh, don’t ruin the end for me.” He watched the screen for a short moment. “Oh my god, why do they never know how zero gravity works? It’s not hard to figure out. INERTIA. IT’S A THING. So is gravity! Even when you're not on a planet!” He shouted at the screen, and Chris laid back against him and enjoyed it all.

–

There was an electrical storm that night. Late. You would think, Mark reflected, that he would be the one to flip out when they happened, but he’d been unconscious for the trauma inflicted by the storm on Mars. It was Chris who’d been dealing with the loss of a crew member he’d had to declare dead.

“Chris.” He’d been awakened by screaming, and now Chris was sitting in the middle of their bed, stock still except for flinches when lightning flashed. “Chris, I’m turning on the lights.” He did, and that didn’t help his peace of mind one bit. Chris was hyperventilating, eyes staring at nothing, too still. “CHRIS.” He tried again, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

Chris flinched horribly, but after that his breathing slowed down. “Mark.” He croaked.

“Yeah. It’s fine. Regular old storm. On Earth. Rain and everything.” The lightning chose that damn moment to crash again, and Chris was out of the bed and into the bathroom. Mark caught up as he was vomiting into the toilet, and put a hand under his head to support him, leaning a hip against him as well. He rubbed his back. “Take it easy, it’s only some fucking rain. Everyone’s okay, I’m right here.”

“Fuck.” Chris gasped and staggered over to the edge of the tub, perched there. He took the wet washcloth and wiped his face, the back of his neck. “FUCK.” Mark put some toothpaste on Chris’ toothbrush and handed it to him. Unfortunately, this happened often enough they had a routine. “Thanks.” He brushed, rinsed, spit it all into the toilet.

“Storm, or a nightmare?” Mark asked, as easygoing as possible.

“I think the storm set off the memory of the storm on Mars. It was like I was watching- me now, watching. I knew you were still alive, but there I was going ‘no, he’s dead, we have to go’.” He gagged and spit into the toilet again.

Mark pulled on one of the thick, fluffy robes he’d bought when these things became an issue, wrapped Chris up in the other, and led him out to sit at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. He made chamomile tea, watched as Chris drank some. “Had these before?”

A shrug. “Not this bad.”

“And you didn’t think to mention lightning is a trigger for you?”

Chris looked a little sheepish. “I felt like you have enough to worry about.”

“Uh huh.” Mark decided. Well, he woke up screaming, shouldn’t be too rough on him. “Next time I figure out a trigger of my own, I’ll leave you to randomly discover it, then, shall I?”

The wince Chris made looked like he’d made his point, so he dropped it. “Come on. Bring your tea, we can snuggle in bed while you drink it, until the storm’s over.”

–

“How was the botany department?” Chris asked when Mark sat down across from him in the cafeteria. Mark didn’t have any food with him, had simply walked in and dropped into the chair. Now he laid his head on the table and groaned. “That good, huh?”

“Oh my fucking god, it’s a department of ME. Like ten of them. Ten of ME. Even the interns!”

Chris sat back in his chair and laughed until heads were turning and he couldn’t breathe.

“They’re stoners. Among other intoxicants, they’re growing high-yield marijuana; they claim they're breeding for anti-fungal traits and I can't disprove it. I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t legal now. It’s produced a couple good papers, so I can ignore how they’re using the products of the research. However there’s also a STILL, which is NOT legal and part of the lab tour was a discussion on how hard it is to distill really strong booze without it tasting like rubbing alcohol. They’re going to have to license it or take it apart, and I honestly wouldn’t put it past them to get a license somehow.”

He paused to think, shook his head, and had to laugh. “It’s a plant zoo. It’s not a lab. It’s a ZOO. They've got plants from all over the world, most of which have nothing to do with any of our research. The entire group has standing orders to capture bugs live, so the head lab tech can feed them to the rack of carnivorous plants in her office. She’s got fuckin’ Maui sundews in there, I don’t know how she’s keeping them alive; I’ve never seen them outside photos. Witchcraft maybe. They’re growing a CORPSE FLOWER from seed, someone else is breeding rare orchids – really rare, like I wonder if they're legal, there’s a collection of fungi I’ve never seen before. Bunch of weirdass succulents including the freaky ones that look like rocks and I'm almost positive I saw peyote. They have a pet slime mold named Fred.”

“I want to meet Fred.” Chris said immediately. Because of course he did; he was a biologist.

“No, you want to meet the colony, shit, are they a flock? School? of Elysia sea slugs.”

“The ones that use chlorophyll in their cells.” Chris double-checked.

“Yeah. Someone stuck a sign on the tank, it says ‘shut up, they’re plants’.”

Chris rocked back in his chair and laughed and laughed.

The guy with the green hair and dandelion tattoos appeared at their table with a tray, and placed it carefully next to Mark. “I brought your lunch, Doctor Watney.” He turned to Chris and held out a hand. “Doctor Beck. It’s a privilege. I’m Ishi.”

“Nice to meet you. Call me Beck.” They shook hands and Ishi beamed.

“No, you two are not allowed to be friends.” Mark told them. “This kid,” he jerked a thumb at Ishi, “is going to be my problem child, I know it already. He's got illegal plants in his office.”

“Eat your food before it gets cold, sir.” Ishi told him, and headed back to a table near the salad bar.

“And quit calling me sir!” Mark shouted after him.

Chris was still having trouble breathing from all the laughing.

“Seriously though,” Mark said around a mouthful of food, “every damn one of them I’ve heard of before, from reading their research. Some of them have published books; one of the INTERNS has a really famous plant blog. It’s all good, solid stuff. I’d wonder if Musk put the department together entirely to fuck with me, like a dream team, but most of them have been here for years. He just hires brilliant people.”

“Going well, then?”

Mark nodded. “The head of the department is retiring in January. She’s wanted to for a while now, but was waiting for someone she trusted to take over, and apparently that’s me.” He shook his head. “When they heard I was coming, they finished up most of their research, the short term stuff, anyway, and were happily awaiting ideas and direction as well as having suggestions of their own. I half-assedly scrawled out some things on a whiteboard, and they were already at it when I left. Kicking around ideas, arguing with each other. Productive arguing.” He shook his head. “I’ll never be able to keep up.”

“Don’t try.” At Mark’s look, Chris smiled. “Trust me. I know from the Air Force. It’s not vital to be the smartest person in the group; it’s important to be working with the smartest person in the group. Besides, you know it's really damned annoying to be the smartest person in the room.”

“They want to breed specialized plants for space.” Mark added.

“Is that wrong? It doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

“Oh, it’s not WRONG. What it is, is a major investment of time and resources. It will take years of breeding to do the things they have in mind, even with modern culturing methods. And they’re talking about it like a trip to the corner store. And if they do it right, the plants will be useless or damn near, on the ground.”

“So you said no?”

“Nah, I turned 'em loose. They’re excited as hell.” He jerked his head toward the Ishi. “He wants to start with super-weeds as breeding stock, because they’ll be hardy. He's got a point, and a lot of the weeds are edible already. It’ll save the world or go down in literal flames, but we’ll learn something from it, one way or the other.”

“It really is a department of you.”

“Ha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my lovely Utopian reality I've built here, the FBI actually takes death threats made on line seriously. Also in the reality I'm currently inhabiting, I betcha if you called the cops or the feds from NASA in HOUSTON, you'd get some action.   
> \--  
> Yes, the Sir thing is from a movie, but it's in the movie because people with an Asian/Polynesian background are absolutely going to call someone they respect something very respectful. Ishi started out with the Sir because it was MARK WATNEY OMFG HE GETS TO WORK WITH MARK WATNEY, but he's keeping it up because it's a fun way to tease someone he deeply respects.  
> __  
> The movie they're watching is "Mission to Mars" and I will not even BEGIN on the BAD PHYSICS of that one character getting stranded in orbit. I can rescue that damn astronaut my damn self, FFS.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wanted to believe I could put Mars behind me.”
> 
> “Think of it more as off to one side? It might never be entirely out of sight, but it isn’t controlling your life right now.”
> 
> “Isn’t it?” Mark asked wearily.
> 
> “No.” Chis considered some things again, things he’d brooded over since he’d pulled Mark back aboard the Hermes. “I’ve never told you… Still don’t know if I should.”
> 
> “What?” Mark ran a finger over Chris’ bottom lip, then leaned in to nibble on it.
> 
> “You beat Mars. More than you know. It should have killed you.”

Afternoon was Environmental Engineering, known as ‘Enviro’ throughout SpaceX. He met another group of about ten brilliant people. This time instead of eager faces waiting for projects, they walked him through what they were working on, including a more efficient water reclaimer with some unfortunate plumbing. They kept having pipes blow out from water hammers, but the ivory-tower engineers were having trouble figuring that out.

In the corner, a younger dark-skinned woman of average height was leaning, arms crossed, looking extremely disgusted by the entire thing. She’d been introduced as Jones, no other title or information, and he was told she was a ‘tech’, again with no more detail than that. Mark figured lack of doctorates was leading to lack of respect, which was too bad. “Jones, right?” He asked her.

“Yeah.” She caught herself and tried to give a respectful nod.

Well, that was fine, he was tired of adulation. “What’s your analysis?”

She blinked at him. “It’s a water hammer. The pipe’s got too much pressure, for too long, to allow a ninety-degree bend like that. The water wants to keep going straight. Physics. It’s a thing.” She rolled her eyes, then caught herself and sort of winced.

Mark nodded. She was right. “How many times have you told them that?”

All the other engineers were standing around, either annoyed or shocked or some combination of the two.

“Three or four.” Jones glared at the assembled eggheads. “But I don’t have a degree, so I don’t know anything. Twenty years fixing submarines for the Navy, I didn’t learn a damn thing. And Mr Musk personally hired me because I’m stupid.”

Mark coughed a laugh into his hand. “She’s right.” He told the assembled department. “You need to add some bends in the straight bit to slow down the water, or change that right angle to a couple forty-fives, both would be best.” While they pondered that, he leaned against the wall next to Jones. “So what are you doing around here, exactly?”

“Building their shit, occasionally doing inspections.”

“Uh huh.” Mark was of the opinion engineers should build their own shit, because it helped with the design process. “And what are you supposed to be doing?”

“Inspections, but mostly trouble-shooting, contributing to heavy fab design. I’m trained as a hull tech, pipe fitter, and NDT inspector.”

Excellent. Someone with hands-on training and experience. “What did you fix on submarines?”

“Everything. Including nuke plants in the old ones before they were phased out. Steam lines, all the plumbing, hull inspections.” She smiled a little. “I got stuck with hull inspections a lot because I’m smaller than most of the men doing that job, so I fit between the inner and outer hulls easier. Same goes for some of the weirder valve replacements.”

“Not claustrophobic, then.”

“My last chief used to say I was part squirrel.”

One of the engineers asked for Mark’s opinion on their ideas for a fix. “How about we ask Jones? That’s her thing.” It got him a brilliant smile.

–

Mark took Tuesday off to look at potential offices for his non-profit. Wednesday, he walked into his office to an enraged PA. “Your real-estate agent e-mailed last night to give you another list of properties to look at.”

“All right, thank you.” He wondered if running into his office would cost him any dignity; what was she angry about?

“May I remind you, as your PA, I need to know what is going on in your life so I can properly manage it?” She said tartly.

“Right, but. This isn’t SpaceX stuff, this is-”

“What does PA stand for, Doctor Watney?”

Shit, they were back to using titles. “Personal Assistant.” He responded dutifully.

“Yes. Personal. PERSONAL. Not work-related, not what you think I might want to do, but personal. I am here to help you manage your life, not only your work. Particularly as you are terrible at separating the two, which you’ve even admitted to me.” She picked up her tablet and followed him into his office when he tried to escape, sat down across from his desk. Opened a note-taking app. “Now. Tell me what is going on, why you’re renting an office, and what your requirements are for it.”

“You don’t have to-” He stopped because she was narrowing her eyes at him in a way that reminded him of his mother. “Would you like coffee, or a Pepsi?”

“Pepsi, please, and then I want details of this project. And anything else going on in your life that you didn’t think I needed to know.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He said without thinking. It was how he used to answer Lewis when she was giving orders.

“Better.” She replied with a nod.

“While we’re at it, then, uh.” He handed her a bottle of Pepsi and sat at his desk, feeling stupidly like a fraud, because she was clearly the one in charge of the office. “There’s a woman in Enviro, last name of Jones. I never got her first name. She was career Navy, enlisted, lots of experience and tech skills, no degrees that I know of. Can I get her service record and her HR file?”

“Certainly.” Hannah said, making notes. “May I ask why?”

“I think I found my research assistant.”

–

Everything was going smoothly, finally. Mark had two departments of geniuses to run, a line on a potential assistant, and a PA who had taken over the job of finding the office for his non-profit. When Hannah caught him filling out paperwork to register it, the endless tax forms, registrations, and incorporations, she took those away and did them, too. Which freed him up to spend more time in the labs, and he found himself hanging out in Botany a lot, because they were a good-natured bunch of crazy geniuses. It was all going really well until a cold front moved across Houston.

Mark got himself upstairs to his office, took some pain meds, and wrapped up in a blanket in his orthopedic chair before the worst of it hit. Then he sort of stared out the window for a while.

“Mark?” Chris crouched in front of him, taking his pulse and checking his pupils. “You in there?”

“’M fine.” Mark told him. At the look he got, he explained “I mean, it’s not PTSD. How come winter didn’t bother me last year, and now the weather’s trying to kill me?”

Chris laid a hand along his face. “Boston usually doesn’t do twenty-degree temp changes in an hour, like we just got. And it’s not damp and cold, it’s dry and cold.”

“That matters?”

“Often.”

Huh. Mark stared out the window. “Hey. What are you doing here?” Chris was supposed to be at NASA that day.

“Hannah called me. I told you, when you’re still and quiet, it makes people nervous.”

Mark snorted a laugh, then winced when a spot where he’d broken his ribs sent up a protest.

Hannah appeared behind Chris and started handing over hot packs and heating pads, which Chris then packed around Mark’s hips, knees, torso, and ankles.

“Speak of the hyper-efficient PA, and she shall appear.” Mark mumbled.

“Yep. Don’t even have to say my name three times to summon me. That would waste time.” Hannah handed off the last of the hot packs.

“Hands.” Mark told Chris softly.

Chris glanced up, met Mark’s eyes, then gently took Mark’s hands in his. “Painful?”

“Like I’ve been punching rocks.”

Hannah re-appeared with two more hot packs, and Chris wrapped his hands with them, then tucked the blanket back over the whole thing. Mark wilted into the chair as the pain started to back off a little bit.

Next thing he was aware of was Doctor Black, the guy who’d done his nerve block, sitting down next to him where Chris had been. “Weather?” He asked.

Mark nodded. “Hit like a hammer. Full body.”

“Give me a rundown of where it’s worst.”

“Back, ribs where I broke them, ankle, knees, hips, hands.” Which was weird, he didn’t remember injuring his hands.

“All places you show signs of osteoarthritis.” The doctor nodded. “We’ll try some of the more usual treatments, expand from there if they don't work.”

“Don’t wanna be doped up.”

“Good. Because I’m not going to dope you up. But consider, how effective are you right now? At least if you’re zonked from medication, you aren’t in pain.”

“I hate that you have a point.” Mark told him, and the guy laughed.

“We’ll get a couple prescriptions going. Do you want me to give you details, or discuss it with Doctor Beck, have him explain when you’re feeling better?”

“Chris.” He felt bad dumping more on Chris but he didn’t think he’d be able to concentrate enough to make sense of the information right now anyway.

A little while later, Hannah patted his arm and he looked away from the window. She was holding a paper cup of pills, and Chris was in a huddle with the doctor. He laboriously pulled his hand out of the hot pack, put the pills in his mouth, and washed them down with the bottle of water Hannah then handed him. He took her hand. “Hey. Thank you.”

She smiled a little. “It’s-”

“It’s not your job. I don’t care what you say, if you consider this your job, it’s because you’re a generous person. It’s not your job. I appreciate it. A lot.”

Hannah smiled and held his hand very gently. “You’re welcome. You and Chris are easy guys to take care of.”

Mark didn’t see how that was possible, but he let it ride, and went back to staring out the window.

–

Chris got Mark home through some series of cars and wheelchairs and fire doors that Mark still wasn’t sure he’d tracked on entirely, although by the second dose of whatever it was they were giving him, he was feeling a lot more coherent. “What is this?” He asked, washing it down.

“Drug that sort of muffles the nervous system, makes it harder for pain signals to get through, the more usual anti-inflammatories and a low-dose narcotic to take the edge off for now. The nervous system meds can have weird side effects, so let me know if you develop ringing in your ears, balance problems, vision disturbance, that kind of thing. Any kind of mild nervous system wonkiness can be caused by them.”

“Wonkiness. You learn that term in medical school?”

“Sure did.” Chris smiled. “Feeling better then?”

“Much. You really can tell by the sarcasm?”

“Yep. Think you can eat?”

He’d missed one of his every-three-hours meals and another was coming up. “Pizza? In bed? With a movie?” He asked hopefully.

“You’re pretty easy.” Chris wheeled him into the bedroom, and they got Mark tucked in with more hot packs before the pizza arrived. “I’m not watching another Mars movie.” Chris announced with one look at the screen.

“Oh come on, they’re GREAT. They’re all WRONG!”

–

After pizza, Mark cuddled up, and there was slow, soft kissing. Chris happily snuggled down in the bed and ignored the movie to taste and touch and curl together, sharing breath, in the flickering light of whatever was playing. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, thank you.”

Chris decided not to remind him he’d needed a pain specialist. Mark was living the proof of it right now. “Meds making you feel loopier, or more clear-headed?”

“More clear-headed. I hate when the doctors are right.”

He laughed and leaned in for another long kiss, whiskers rasping together, tongues licking. “Mm. The goal is to make your life better; we’re all on the same side.”

“I know.” Mark pulled one of his hands out from under the heat packs to pet Chris’ beard. “I wanted to believe I could put Mars behind me.”

“Think of it more as off to one side? It might never be entirely out of sight, but it isn’t controlling your life right now.”

“Isn’t it?” Mark asked wearily.

“No.” Chis turned off the entertainment screen, considered some things again, things he’d brooded over since he’d pulled Mark back aboard the Hermes. “I’ve never told you… Still don’t know if I should.”

“What?” Mark ran a finger over Chris’ bottom lip, then leaned in to nibble on it.

“You beat Mars. More than you know. It should have killed you.”

“Yeah, I know-”

“You don’t. I’m speaking as your doctor now. A pretty good doctor, your flight surgeon, the one who got you out of that EVA suit on the Hermes. The condition you were in, when we got you aboard? You should have been dead. Not only should you have been dead from malnutrition, but you should NEVER have survived a twelve G launch. I’ve looked at your records, studied them for years now, talked to you, read all the research, tried to figure it out. The only explanation I have is pure stubbornness. Maybe, MAYBE, some unknown effect low gravity has on starvation was an element, but even then, it was stubbornness that was the major factor. That’s my considered medical opinion, not your boyfriend talking.”

“Really?”

“Really. You sure as hell shouldn’t be living a normal life, healing broken bones, having sex, putting in over forty hours of work a week and doing a full fitness program. It should be physically impossible. Yet here you are. If you’d asked me the first time I saw you after Mars? I’d have said you would never be capable of normal life again; I thought you’d be in an assisted care facility permanently. One reason NASA acted like you'd be there forever is because, well, you were expected to need intensive medical care for the rest of your life. The length of which we weren't sure about. I won’t even start on the psych end of it, but you’re a miracle.”

Mark simply blinked for a long moment, absorbing the idea. “I didn’t realize I was that bad. I mean, I knew I was bad, but not THAT bad.”

Chris laid his head against Mark’s. “You were. I haven’t said anything because I didn’t want you to think you needed to fall apart now, or live up to it somehow. But the idea that Mars is still messing with your life? You won. You triumphed. I’m the medical expert, YOUR medical expert, and I have no idea how you did it. If anyone else on the crew had been left behind, we’d be dead. If not from lack of the needed skills, from the absolute crush of the stress involved. You? You laughed it off. Psych at NASA was positive you were faking it on comms; I kept telling them that no, that was all you. You laughed in Mars’ face, you came home, and you built a solid, happy life, with a job and friends and a lover. You do pretty much what you want, when you want to. That’s a win, by any metric.”

“Huh.” Mark took a while to think about that, so Chris sat up and took his free hand in both of his own and started a gentle massage. “Oh god, that feels good.” Chris kissed the palm of his hand and continued. “How does that feel so good?”

“Hands have lots and lots of nerves in them.” Chris reminded him, then sucked one of Mark’s fingers into his mouth and ran his tongue around it before going back to the massage.

Mark got his other hand free, and reached up to grab Chris by the hair and pull him in for a kiss. “Take off your shirt for me.” Something must have showed on his face, because Mark grinned and continued, “No, I’m not having sex tonight. Too much pain, too many drugs. I want to look at you.”

Uh. All right. Chris had no idea where it was going, but he sat up and pulled his shirt off. “How about the rest?” something made him ask.

“That too, please. Strip off.” Mark brushed his hand down the center of Chris’ chest to his navel and Chris shivered, then pulled off his jeans and socks, tossed it all on the floor. Mark’s hands were really warm from the hot packs, and felt incredibly good when he ran them up and down Chris’ torso. “I love your chest.” He paused for a moment, then settled back into his pillows, moved some hot packs around. “Up on my lap, please.”

Chris straddled his hips, feeling exposed and turned on, wondering what Mark had in mind. Not that it mattered; he couldn’t say no to him, didn’t want to. “Am I too heavy? Do NOT let me hurt you, I mean it.”

“You’re great. Very pretty.” Mark leaned forward and licked a nipple, then settled back and put his hands back in his hot packs with a sigh of relief. “Jerk off for me. Slowly.”

“What.” Chris whispered. His breath was short.

“Never done this before?” Mark asked with a grin.

Chris shook his head.

“You can say no at any time.” Mark reminded him, like there was any doubt of that. “Lean forward, give me a kiss.” Chris did. “Now.” Mark’s voice got low and rough. “Show me what you do without a partner, baby. Let me watch you.”

He shut his eyes, shivered, and wrapped one hand around his cock, pumping it slowly as asked. His skin felt too tight, and his hands were shaking. He was hard and over-sensitive.

“I’m wondering now, how many things you haven’t done. Lots of partners, none for a long amount of time?” Mark asked.

Chris nodded, still slowly moving his hand.

“Not much time to build up trust then.”

Chris shook his head. He couldn't catch his breath.

Mark got a hand free and pulled him down for a kiss, and Chris fell into it desperately. “That’s it. I’m right here.” He rested his hand on Chris’ thigh as Chris sat back up, then gently ran a finger over the head of his cock. “Your skin’s so soft, it’s like you jerk off with hand lotion.”

He gave a sort of moaning laugh, had to. “That’s terrible for your mucous membranes.”

“Of course it’s Doctor Beck who recovers his powers of speech.” Mark smiled. He laid a hand on Chris’ wrist when he sped up. “No, come on baby, nice and slow for me.”

“Oh god, Mark.” He was right on the edge, hanging there.

“There you are, Poker Face Beck, Doctor Professionalism, biting your lip and trembling because I asked you to touch yourself. I asked, so you're doing it. Most erotic thing I've ever seen. Watching you fall apart like this is my biggest kink. It's amazing. Nobody else gets to see you this way.” Chris couldn’t say anything, but opened his eyes and looked at Mark. His face was soft and gentle, eyes dark, and he had that grin, the one Chris couldn’t resist. “I’m wondering what else you haven’t done.”

“What do you want to do?”

“If you keep rushing things, I should tie you up, make you hold still so I can take as long as I like with you.” Mark said thoughtfully.

Chris shivered and moaned.

“Ah, you hate that idea.” More of the sexy grin. “Have you ever played with toys? With a partner?”

Chris shook his head. “Not much,” he gasped, still catching his breath from the idea of being tied up. “Not with another guy.” Talk about feeling owned and taken.

“Would you let me?” Mark asked, low and rough.

“Yes.” Chris breathed, his entire body tightening for one long beat of almost-orgasm. If he sped up, he’d come instantly.

“You trust me for that.” It wasn’t quite a question.

He nodded. Of course he trusted Mark. “Anything you want.”

“I’ll have to take extra-good care of you, make sure the trust isn’t misplaced.” Mark leaned forward and licked the nipple he hadn’t, the first time. “Being the one to introduce you to something new would be a fun change.”

Chris realized he was making broken noises every time he exhaled. He tried to stop, and whimpered “Mark” weakly instead. He was so close he was shaking.

“Right here, baby. Thinking up ways to take care of you. Possess you. Make you say my name like that again.”

All he could manage was a positive-sounding groan.

“Maybe make you wear a plug, see how long you can stand it before you beg me to take you.”

The orgasm swamped him with no warning, pulled him under, and he made a noise that was almost a wail. Then warm hands were gripping his face, and Mark was watching him, WATCHING him, and another wave pulled him under and he fell forward and let himself shout into Mark's shirt.

–

Mark wished the idea of sex didn’t make his body hurt, because he’d really like to roll Chris over and fuck him blind. Instead he cuddled the wheezing, shaking mess of him up against his chest and rubbed his back. “I’ve got you, baby. That’s it. You were beautiful.” He kissed the top of Chris’ head. “Fucking gorgeous.”

“Mark.” Chris croaked out.

“Right here.” He got the glass of water sitting on the nightstand and held it to his lips, helped him drink a little. “That’s it, you’re good. You’re great.” He put the water aside and rubbed Chris’ back some more, kissed his forehead. DAMN, he’d been hot, sitting there on his lap, jerking off. He managed to get hold of a lap blanket thing, and pulled it up, wrapped it over Chris’ bare shoulders, gave him a soft kiss. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.” He gave a full body shiver. “Fuck. That was amazing.”

He was glad to hear it. “Yeah, you were.” He bent his head for another kiss. Chris’ shakes were backing off and he was getting slow and languid like he did after really good orgasms. “Sit up, for a second, please?” Chris did, and Mark quickly pulled off his shirt and used it to clean up any spunk that hadn’t already landed on it, then tossed it on the floor. “There we go. More cuddles.”

They laid together for a while, warm and content. “What would you do if I tied you up?” Chris asked suddenly.

“Come screaming, I imagine.” Mark answered without thinking much about it. Seemed fairly obvious.

“Oh.”

“Anything I suggest we do, goes both ways, at least until we figure out who likes what. Even then, the option’s open. Seems only fair, right?”

“You’re making me curious.” Chris admitted.

“You? I still haven’t bottomed yet, may I remind you. Gonna get around to fucking me one of these days? Curiosity is a thing, you know. A thing that makes scientists bonkers.”

Chris moaned and shivered again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris, the utter, complete, scheming dick, showed up about three-quarters of the way through the allotted time for the interview and let himself get talked into joining them. As if it wasn’t his plan all along.
> 
> “What are your new responsibilities going to be at SpaceX, Doctor Beck?” Cathy asked, beaming.
> 
> Chris smiled back brightly from his seat next to Mark.
> 
> Fuckers.

“Thank you for having us, Doctor Watney.” The woman smiled, makeup perfect, as her cameramen and sound men and makeup guys and who the fuck else knew set up in his office. Sound person was putting a microphone on the collar of his shirt, and he was doing deep breathing exercises because apparently now strangers up in his face bothered him. Fuck you, brain.

Across the room, the cameraman called, “Sweetheart, get me a cup of coffee,” toward Hannah.

“HEY.” Mark barked at him. “That is my PA. Her name is Ms Wilson. The coffee is right there.” He pointed at the wet bar. “Get it yourself.”

Cameraman glared. Mark glared back. Hannah beamed.

Mark didn’t want to think about how women were getting treated in the offices across America, but anyone trying this bullshit here was not going to be tolerated. He hoped no one tried sexual assault, because he’d wind up in jail for breaking them in half.

“If we could sit, discuss the parameters of the interview.” Cathy asked. She’d been the one to host the Mark Watney Report on CNN during the Mars drama, so she was probably the logical choice for it.

Mark thought he’d been pretty damn clear about what he wasn't going to discuss, but all right. He could do it again. “Sure.”

They sat, facing each other, in a couple of Mark’s visitor chairs. “The public is extremely curious about your personal life.”

Yeah, he bet they were. “My parents are going to watch this interview; so is Chris' family, and the rest of the crew's. Keep that clearly in mind. I will.”

She smiled and he fought not to make a face at her. “Of course, but the public is fascinated by the idea of romance aboard the Hermes.”

“I hate to ruin it for them, but there wasn’t one. The press conference I gave after the kissing photo came out? It was the truth. That was our first date. Also keep in mind, Chris was the ship’s doctor. He’d never do anything inappropriate, and I’d never ask it of him. Any implication that Chris violated his code of ethics is going to get shot down. With prejudice.” Thanks to that damn photo, he and Chris almost never indulged in public displays of anything, trying to keep their life private. They should probably quit trying but goddamn it, it was PERSONAL.

Cathy looked a little disappointed and Mark took a swig of coffee so he didn’t say anything unfortunate.

“I’m more than happy to repeat that, but there was no great romance of the ages going on the Hermes. On the way home, I was in such bad shape I couldn’t even eat solid food for the first two months. I’m not kidding when I say it’s kind of flattering that people think I was capable of much of anything but breathing.” When he’d been on Mars, he hadn’t had the luxury of feeling bad; once he slowed down enough to feel things, WOW, had he been fucked up. If he’d had a less skilled doctor, he didn’t think he’d have made it home alive.

Visibly giving up on that direction, Cathy then asked, “How much are you willing to discuss about NASA?”

“Only what’s been in the news.” He decided to head off another angle. “I’m also not discussing my physical health except in broad terms, and we’re not discussing psych at all.”

“You may want to get out your thoughts on the two videos that were released at Thanksgiving.”

He thought about that. “Yeah, ask about those.”

“We’re ready.” The disgruntled cameraman told them.

They sat up, the camera started, and Cathy smiled at him. “It’s very nice of you to agree to an interview, these years later.”

“Well, Cathy,” Mark said in his interview voice, “given the way the entire world rallied around me, and how much money and time was spent on the rescue, if they want an update, I think they should get one.”

Ugh. At least that bit was sincere.

-

Chris, the utter, complete, scheming dick, showed up about three-quarters of the way through the allotted time for the interview and let himself get talked into joining them. As if it wasn’t his plan all along.

“What are your new responsibilities going to be at SpaceX, Doctor Beck?” Cathy asked, beaming.

Chris smiled back brightly from his seat next to Mark.

Fuckers.

“The one I’m most excited about is the coordination of the lab here with the Ares lab at NASA. We’re going to be working together on what we’ve learned from the crew, what we’ll continue to learn from them.”

“Including yourself.” Cathy summarized.

“Yes, I’ve been running myself through the same medical tests as the rest of the crew, and will continue to do so. I’m not glad Mark broke his ankle, but we learned a great deal during his treatment. We’re going to put it into a paper with the hopes of helping others with osteoporosis. The cause is different, but earthbound people respond to the same treatments astronauts do. It’s very exciting; bone loss is a huge problem for all sorts of people, worldwide.”

Cathy blinked. “The Ares Three mission is already producing useful results?”

“It builds on all we’ve learned, going back to Apollo, but yes, the irregularity of the Ares Three mission has become a research benefit, giving us comparison data against the crews of Ares One and Two. There’s a lot to be learned.”

There was a beat of awkward silence, long enough that Mark hoped they planned to edit this thing.

“And your relationship with Doctor Watney?”

Motherfuck.

Chris laughed. “There’s a lot to be learned there, too. But it’s going well.” He turned to Mark, winked. “It’s going well, right?”

“I haven’t had the urge to throw you out a window in MINUTES, Pookie.” Mark replied, annoyed with both of them. What part of ‘no personal life’ did they not get?

The laughter from Chris was genuine, the asshole. He turned back to Cathy. “He dislikes talking about our personal life. And I don’t blame him, I’m not going to be getting personal either. But we’re happy together, I think.”

“Yeah, fine. We are.” Mark muttered.

Chris laughed again, and this time Mark let himself roll his eyes. Fuck it.

–

“You asshole.” Mark said as soon as the interview team left.

“Oh, come on. I wanted to make a couple points, I left you alone for most of it.”

“What points?”

“That I’m coordinating the labs. That there is useful stuff to learn and the Ares missions aren’t a zillion-dollar boondoggle. And that we’re together and staying that way.”

Mark frowned. “I don’t get why that needed to be announced.”

Chris reached out and grabbed his hand. “I forget that this is new to you, because you rolled with everything so easily, accepted and moved forward.”

“Everything what?”

“Being in a same-sex relationship. There are still parts of the world where it’s illegal, you know. Or very frowned upon. People are still discriminated against, even here in the US. The two of us have enough reputation, credibility, to openly live together, BE together, and defy all the bullshit. Give kids who are struggling something to look up to, or forward to.”

He hadn’t thought of that. Not at all. Everyone around him had accepted, and the people he worked with either accepted or were aware of his history and shut up. “...oh. All right.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to make out in public or anything, but making it clear that we are together romantically and not besties sharing a house? That will support a lot of people who could use it.”

“You should have said something, I’d have handled it differently.”

“No. Mark Watney being Mark Watney is the best thing for this. You’re you, the badass who took on Mars and won. And by the way, you’re living with another man. And to hell with anyone who has a problem with it. Be you. It’s perfect.”

“I can definitely do that.” He put an arm around Chris. “Did you need the support, when you were a kid?”

“No. Or, not much. My family has always been great, and I was successful enough at school that there was only so much people COULD say. But there were kids who treated me like a freak. And I would have enjoyed someone like us for role models. STEM fields can still be tough for anyone other than hetero white men in the US.”

Mark poked him in the ribs and made him jump. “If you’d told me that, I’d have handled the interview differently.”

Chris grinned. “I wanted you unscripted. The subtext was perfect- ‘yeah, I’m living with Chris Beck, yeah I’m happy, and if you have a problem with it, fuck you’. That’s another thing kids don’t see enough of.”

Mark decided he was still going to be handling the media a little differently from now on. He’d let them bring up the subject, say he was happy, and THEN move to the fuck off portion of the discussion. In fact, he’d enjoy laying out some support for people in marginalized groups, of which he was apparently one. “You’re supposed to be keeping me up on all the bisexual stuff, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yes, dear.”

“For that, you can cook dinner.”

“I’ll tell your mom. And Marissa.”

“Fuck.”

–

Kelly Scott, their shrink, showed up at lunch and made sad eyes until they invited him to sit with them. “Hey. We have an appointment right after lunch, so, uh.”

“Sit, talk.” Mark waved. “Hang out, there’s some private stuff, but this is fine for now.”

Ishi appeared with a plate of apple pie, laid it next to Mark’s elbow. “Here you are, Sir.”

“Sucking up is not going to buy my forgiveness, and quit calling me Sir.” Mark grumbled.

“Of course, Sir.” Ishi did a little bow, head nod sort of thing, and departed.

“What was that about?” Scott asked curiously.

“Running Botany is like steering a forest fire, and I’m supposed to be driving. Going to ask Lewis for pointers. I’ve recently developed a lot of sympathy for her.” Mark shook his head, took a big bite of pie, and swore. “Dammit, this is good.” He shoved aside his sandwich and got serious about the pie.

“What did they do now?” Chris asked, grinning, because Botany was already his favorite part of SpaceX.

“They gave Fred a whole bunch of bud to eat, to see if they could get him high. Results were inconclusive. No one had really considered how to gauge his sobriety. One of the interns insists he was sloshing. I’m unconvinced; it doesn't have a nervous system, for fuck's sake. Told them to knock it the fuck off until they developed a field sobriety test that's species-blind. With luck that will prove impossible and I will not deal with this bullshit again.”

Chris laid back in his chair and laughed.

“Fred?” Scott asked.

“Their pet slime mold.” Mark explained.

“Uh.” Scott looked between Mark and Chris. “What’s a slime mold?”

“Nobody really knows.” Mark explained. “It’s an organism that can shift between a whole bunch of single cells and one giant cell with multiple nuclei, apparently at will. We don’t have a name for how they reproduce. Whether it’s vegetable or animal is up for debate. Used to be classified as fungi, now they’re classified as amoeba. Calling theirs a ‘he’ is a linguistic convention, as far as we know they don’t have gender. Oh, and in lab experiments, they’ve shown they can learn. Which I find disturbing, personally. Thankfully they're herbivores or I'd be applying to live on the space station permanently.”

“And there is one of these, kept as a pet, here in the botany department.” Scott repeated.

“They try to figure him out when they’re bored. Which shouldn’t be often, but they’re also running DNA tests on sea slugs, so who the hell knows.” Mark shook his head. “I could keep the little shits busier, but they’d work weekends and continue with this sort of thing, so what's the point?”

Chris was still laughing.

“Settling in, then.” Scott decided.

“If you took ten copies of me, gave them between four and thirty years to collect the weirdest living organisms from all over the planet, shoved them into a fully equipped lab and had Elon Musk fund them, you would have my botany department.” Mark explained.

“So you love it.” Scott concluded.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Mark admitted.

“How’d the interview go?” Scott asked.

“Chris horned in on it without talking to me first, which was somewhat annoying, especially since I’d have agreed to his goals if he’d TOLD ME FIRST.”

Chris looked a little guilty. “Okay, I should have asked, but you might have said no.”

“Is this a good way to run a relationship? Because I am not an expert, but this doesn’t seem like a smart approach.” Mark asked Scott.

“Uh. No.” Scott said. He turned to Chris. “Maybe try discussing next time, first? Give the guy a chance to say no before you go around him?”

“Yeah, should have.” Chris agreed. He turned to Mark. “Sorry.”

“How’s the rest going? Want to wait until we hit an office, or chat here? Some people are more comfortable making it more social. Up to you.”

“For me it's more a privacy thing. Back to the office.” Mark decided. They finished eating, and relocated.

Hannah was eating at her desk, and Mark chased her off, made her take an hour break. “I don’t care what you do, as long as it’s personal time and not at your desk. Play Pokemon Go in the quad, I hear there’s a gym out there. Rescue the slime mold in Botany. Get all medieval and read a book.”

Hannah stared for a long moment, then laughed. “All right. I’m forwarding calls to my phone, though.”

Mark thought about it. “I’ll have that argument with you later.”

He got Scott and Chris into his office, shut the doors for once, and distributed coffee.

“You’re taking good care of your PA.” Scott commented.

Mark rolled his eyes. “I’m trying. It’s worse than NASA for type A people around here. No one wants to have lives, they all want to do their jobs. Twenty-four hours a damn day.”

“The assholes.” Chris said dryly.

“Don’t start with me, Doctor Sixty Hour Work Week.”

“I am not!”

“Include all the time you spend reading medical and science journals.”

Chris took a long drink. “...okay, maybe.”

Mark looked at Scott, raised his hands in a ‘you see what I deal with?’ gesture.

Scott laughed.

“So anyway.” Might as well jump right in, “With the PTSD. How much do I have to give a shit?”

Chris’ focus sharpened instantly.

“I don’t understand the question.” Scott said carefully.

“Like when we were at the Thanksgiving party here in the cafeteria. I’m still not great at crowds, especially crowds of strangers, but I took an Ativan and stayed on the edge of things, and it was kinda fun. Do I need to wring my hands and discuss it with you for an hour, or can I go ‘ugh, fuckin' Mars’, and move on?”

Scott smiled. “The whole point is learning to live with the reactions you have, so I’d call it a success.”

“Feels a lot like not giving a shit.”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

“Nightmares.” Mark carefully did not look at Chris. “Wake up, take a while to get your bearings, say ‘fuck it’ and go back to sleep, same deal?”

Scott gave a cautious nod. “Mostly. If you’re not getting enough sleep it’s a medical problem. But if they’re occasional, I’d call it successful coping. Even kind of impressive. Have you tried medication?”

“It doesn't stop the nightmares, it makes it so I can’t wake up.” Chris said into his coffee mug.

Scott looked between them for a moment. “Ah. How often do you get them? Both of you?”

“Once or twice a week.” Chris decided. “Sound right?” He asked Mark.

“About. I don’t get them too often, maybe once a month, less.” Mark jerked his head at Chris. “He’s nightmares, I’m flashbacks and anxiety attacks.”

“I’ll send you some literature, though I’m betting you’ve already found a good bit of it yourselves. Still doing yoga?” He asked Mark.

“Daily. Since I was on the Hermes.”

“Anxiety attacks this week?”

“Two major, I don't know how minor. If we count stuff where I start breathing fast and have to get a grip, I don't even know. I try NOT to pay attention to it, make it part of the routine. You said I should find coping methods, and shrugging it off is one of mine.” He caught the look on Scott's face. “I'm not ignoring the health or the meditation or the meds if I need them, I'm saying keeping track of every damn little thing is going to make me as bonkers as anxiety itself.”

“All right. How’s the food and weight gain going?”

“He’s still waking me up at three AM, and now I’ve had to take over the cooking.” Mark complained.

“It’s your own damn fault.” Chris told him.

“Okay, I need to hear this one.”

–

Sunday, Commander Lewis called into Martinez’ house on the entertainment screen and demanded to speak to the crew. All of them gave each other the side eye, because no one had called in Vogel, which was usually how they did things when they needed to talk. Why she didn’t became clear, quickly.

“The National Science Foundation wants to give us all a medal.” Lewis told them, with little lead-in.

They all looked at each other. “Go us?” Johanssen offered.

Lewis shook her head. “No. You guys aren’t getting it-”

“The National Science Medal is only given out to Americans.” Chris told them all, catching up to Lewis faster than the rest.

They all looked at each other for a moment. “I’m not taking mine unless Vogel gets one too.” Mark announced.

“Same.” Johanssen agreed, glaring.

“Seems like a bullshit rule.” Martinez agreed. “He’s one of us. All of us or none of us.”

Chris simply nodded, waved his hand at everyone else.

Lewis beamed. “You’re all still the best damn crew. I’ll relay the message. I’ve got no idea if they’ll fold, we could wind up with no medals.”

“Don’t care.” Mark told her. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

“Excellent.” Lewis nodded. “Second order of business, Beck and Watney, what the fuck are you two doing?”

They looked at each other, back to the Commander. “Uh. Hanging out at Martinez’ house?” Mark finally offered. It felt like a trick question.

“I’m talking about Elon Musk having me and Robert to dinner Friday night.”

Chris and Mark looked at each other; nope, neither of them knew anything. “Uh.”

“You didn’t know.” Lewis realized.

“No.” Chris said. “Not a hint. What did he want?”

“To hire me.”

Mark sat back and thought about that. “You’d be great at SpaceX.” He thought out loud. “You could keep the Station crew in line, for sure.” Especially once construction started on the addition.

“Safety and Crisis Management could use you too.” Chris told her. “I’m working with them on EMS, and they’re good, but you’re better.”

“NOT HELPING.” Lewis snarled.

Johanssen had a hand over her mouth, politely trying to hide her smile. Martinez was openly laughing.

“Look, Commander,” Mark told her, “we’re covered by, like, fifteen gag orders and NDAs. We can’t tell you what’s going on, or the stuff we’re working on. But you would be really, really helpful here, and I don’t think you’d regret it, once you signed on and got the low-down.”

“You do remember my teaching career, here at the Academy?”

Mark shrugged. “I’m a contractor. Setting up my non-profit two days a week, popping in to harass Botany and Enviro the other three days. Take a deal like that, it’s only an hour’s flight, or so, between Houston and DC, teach part time, work here part time.”

“NASA will lose their shit if I sign with SpaceX.” Lewis pointed out.

“NASA is already losing their shit, and I’m hoping to poach Johanssen and Martinez as soon as Ares Five is done.” Mark told her.

“You ARE?” Martinez asked, shocked.

“Yeah. I mentioned it to Vogel, he says Helena wants to raise their kids in Germany. Given the Ares Three extended mission, it’s little enough for her to ask. He told me to offer again when his youngest turns eighteen. That’s four years from now. About when these guys,” he jerked a thumb at Martinez and Johanssen, “will be getting home.”

“You didn’t tell me you talked to Vogel.” Chris said, surprised.

Mark shrugged. “You know what we’re working on. You know having the Ares Three crew, all of us, working on it, would be an ideal-world kind of situation. Might as well try to make it happen.”

Chris thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. He looked at the others. “He’s right. We can’t talk about current goals, but you’d be really, really useful at SpaceX, get paid better, and be perfect for what they’re doing. Also, we hope NASA will fall in and cooperate soon. We're developing a few good reasons for them to want to.”

Lewis glared.

Mark and Chris both smiled as reassuringly as possible.

“I’ll think about it.” Lewis told them, and hung up.

“Holy shit.” Martinez told them all.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The entire Ares Three crew working on a Moon colony. Think about it. It’d immediately give the whole project credibility, not to mention they all really do have outstanding skills that would be damn useful. They’d love it, too. We all went to Mars, we’re willing to risk our lives to help colonize other planets. Let them do it.”
> 
> Plus we’d have the entire crew together in one place again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, holidays and I'm STILL not happy with the sex scene, but I can't tinker with it forever.

Sprawled out in bed together, later that night, Chris brought it up again. “I can’t believe you tried to poach Vogel.”

“The entire Ares Three crew working on a Moon colony. Think about it. It’d immediately give the whole project credibility, not to mention they all really do have outstanding skills that would be damn useful. They’d love it, too. We all went to Mars, we’re willing to risk our lives to help colonize other planets. Let them do it.”

“Plus we’d have the entire crew together in one place again.”

“Yep. Fantastic bonus.”

“Ares Five needs to get going, so we can poach Johanssen and Martinez.”

“Bonus, Teddy will blow a gasket.”

“Losing Johanssen could set NASA back. She’s that good.”

“And maybe inspire NASA to cooperate a little more. Imagine what could get accomplished if NASA worked with SpaceX the way they do with the ESA.”

Chris laughed and leaned over to kiss him.

-

Mark was in Botany the next afternoon, pointing out – uselessly – that as botanists, figuring out how sea slugs ‘worked’ wasn’t really their job. The department was uninterested in ‘such pedestrian definitions of what botany is, really, Sir?’ and doing DNA analysis of the chloroplasts, trying to figure out how to ‘power’ other animals with sunlight.

“You know this is a super-villain origin story, right?” Mark told them all. “Graft some photosynthesizing cells into, what, vertebrates next? Have them develop super powers from the yellow sun, and we all die at the mercy of a solar-powered lab rat?”

Everyone stared. “It’s possible you’ve seen too many movies, Sir.” Ishi finally said.

“Quit calling me Sir.” He turned to the rest of the lab. “Transfer the cells into something less complex, some other kind of invertebrate, first. NOT THE SLIME MOLD. Get it to work. And by work I mean not drop dead in nine months like the slugs do. Then we’ll talk.” He didn’t want to shoot them down or tell them no. But he also didn’t want to end the world. ‘No’ and ‘that’s impossible’ had no place in science, but ‘is this a good idea?’ needed asked a lot more often.

Everyone nodded and scrambled for tablets and notebook computers.

His phone dinged, and it was a text from Hannah. -Director Henderson is here, asking for you. I’ve put him in your office with a cup of coffee. Chris is on his way.-

“All right, I’ve got to go have a really exciting meeting. Nobody create a solar-powered lab rat with super powers while I’m gone, got it?”

“Yes Sir!” They all chorused, and he glared at them for a moment before slamming out. Smartasses, every damn one of them.

–

“Sorry to barge into your day.” Mitch stood when Mark walked in, shook his hand, then sat again as Mark settled into the seating area where Chris was already sprawled out with a soda.

“Not a problem. Is there a problem?”

Mitch laughed. “No? I was named Flight Director of Ares Five this morning.” Mark and Chris both toasted him and offered sincere congratulations. “I find myself wondering what you two had to do with that.” Mitch concluded.

“Not much.” Chris told him. “I suspect it was the Ares Five crew who made it happen. You should ask them.”

“What do you know?” Mitch demanded.

Mark smiled. “Martinez and Johanssen asked permission, a while back, to tell the Five crew the full story of my rescue. We said yes. After that, it’s all on them.”

Mitch stared for a moment. “You’re kidding me.”

“No.” Chris smiled. “If they have any sense, they want the best person possible to have their backs, here on earth, while they’re away. And that person is you.”

Mitch stared down into his coffee, looking a little choked up. “You know Teddy’s goal was to run me out, after I sent you the Purnell Maneuver data.”

“Yeah, fuck Teddy. We want what’s best for the crews. And that’s you.”

–

“Can you reserve a conference room for next Friday, get food for about twenty-five for the day, first brunch and later on a dinner thing? I know fancy catering is hopeless with this notice, but lots of restaurants will do for this kind of group.” Mark asked Hannah.

She picked up her tablet and began taking notes. “Sure. Any dietary concerns? Allergies, celiac, like that?”

“I have no idea. I’ll find out.”

She shook her head. “Who will be there?”

“Botany and Enviro.”

“I’ll take care of it. Do you want me to bill the food to your VP entertainment account, or Botany?”

“What?” Mark said blankly.

“You’ve got two entertainment budgets, one as Vice President of Environmental Research, and the other as head of the Botany lab.”

“Oh.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Do you read ANYTHING that HR sends you?”

“Not really.”

“This is why you need me, you realize.”

-

Over dinner, Chris handed Mark an envelope. “Since you’ve been complaining that I don’t tell you things, and you might have a point, here you go.”

Mark pulled out the letter, opened it, read. “Am I getting this? You’re under investigation? For- What the fucking hell, being inappropriate with a PATIENT? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’ve been expecting it. Legal at SpaceX was ready to go on it. It was kind of inevitable that one of the people I’ve pissed off at NASA made something up to try and stir up trouble for me.”

“This is BULLSHIT.” Mark read the letter again.

“Well, since I’ve never done anything inappropriate, they’re going to have a hard time proving it.” Chris didn’t seem terribly concerned but that was fine, Mark could be concerned for both of them.

“Legal is on this, right?”

“Yes.”

–

TO: MLewis@USNA.edu, AVogel@ESA.int, EJohanssen@NASA.gov, RMartinez@NASA.gov  
FROM: MWatney@SpaceX.com

Hey. Chris is being investigated for inappropriate behavior with a patient - ME, probably instigated by Chen, Helm, or Bernstein. Not telling you what to do, but since you were his patients and were there, if you have an opinion, the number for the department looking into it is 202.555.1234.

–

Chris checked his phone, put it back in his pocket. Personalized weather updates from the meteorology department at SpaceX were pretty damn awesome, even when the news itself sucked. A cold front similar to the one that had laid Mark out before was due in half an hour, and luckily it was Saturday. First he got Mark’s meds and took them into their home office, where Mark was using the large main screen to compare three or four sets of blueprints at once.

“What are these?” Mark asked, popping them and washing them down with his coffee.

“Cold front due in about half an hour.”

“Ah.” Mark made a face. “Thanks for looking after me.”

“You’re very welcome.” He went to their bedroom, upped the temperature, turned down the bed, got things arranged how he wanted them. He’d been wanting this for, oh, a couple years now. These days he couldn’t tell his fantasies from his future plans, and really, that was kind of wonderful, wasn’t it? He went back to the office. “Massage. Come on.”

“You don’t have to.” Mark swiveled his chair, looked at him. “You had work you wanted to do today, you can’t spend your whole life trying to fix every-”

Chris leaned down, put his hands on the arms of the office chair, and kissed Mark for what felt like an hour. “I would like to give you a massage, and possibly fool around. I would enjoy it.”

“When you put it that way.” Mark said breathlessly.

Chris pulled him up and led into the bedroom, stripped him down. “Face down on the bed.”

Mark gave him a look, but followed directions. Chris quickly stripped himself and climbed up, sat on Mark’s thighs like he always did. “Too heavy?”

“No. I can’t help but notice you’re more naked than usual.”

“I’m hoping for a massage with benefits. If that’s okay?”

“As long as I’m not in so much pain I can’t see straight.”

Chris began working on Mark’s back, loosening his shoulders, sweeping his hands over all the lovely skin. “Reasonable. We haven’t had any trouble communicating so far, but we can always do that red-yellow-green deal if you need to. Tell me it hurts, I’ll stop. Pain is not the goal, either with the massage or the benefits.”

“I will.”

“I turned up the heat in here, if you want heat packs, say the word.” Chris bent down and kissed his way along Mark’s shoulder, then down his arm. Then he used his hands to loosen the muscles, and repeated it on his other arm. Then he took a break for kissing and licking and a bite or two, and moved to his back. “Putting on muscle. Is it helping?” It was so good to see him filling out. He dropped kisses down the spine of his scapula, now a dip with muscles rising from it on either side, looking more like it had before they’d left earth.

“Yeah, we think so. It’s feeling better. There’s a lot less everyday pain caused by simple moving around.”

Chris pressed on a knot, enjoying the low groan Mark made when it finally let go. “I don’t know how you get bunched up like this when you’re on the muscle relaxants you are.”

“It’s a gift.” Mark told him.

Things were quiet for a while, Chris slowly working the muscles of Mark's back. “For a guy, first time bottoming can be kind of a big deal.” Complete lack of segue, but it was Mark. He didn't much appreciate the finer points of tact anyway.

“If this is more worrying over a heterosexual freak out-”

“Not really. Okay, maybe some. But I've had a good bit of sex-”

“You were a hound. I'm grudgingly impressed.”

“-and for most everyone, it's pretty intimate. Men especially. Reactions seem to be either completely shattered or wanting to go again immediately.”

“How did you handle it?”

“Little of both.”

Mark made a laughing moan kind of noise. “Yeah, that'll probably be me, too.” He lolled for a while, relaxed. “I always thought it hurt.”

“What? Anal sex?”

“Yeah. No judgment, I know some people like that. They aren't me, whatever works for them, you know? But it's not something I go for, so I never tried it. Then we got together, and you REALLY enjoy it.”

“It depends a lot on who I'm with. You? Oh hell yeah.”

Mark reached back and patted his leg. “Pretty much every time since then that you've bottomed has made me more curious. You're very clearly anti-pain.”

“I am definitely that.” Chris licked a line along his back.

“Mmmm. Anti-pain, yet there you are, the supreme poker face, moaning and begging and okay, that looks kind of interesting.”

Chris laid his head on Mark's shoulder and let himself laugh. “Only you would reason yourself through a shift in your orientation.”

“Well I didn't have anything ELSE to go on.” 

Chris licked him again. “I’m keeping it low-key no matter what we do today. Your first time, we hump like a porno movie, you won’t get out of bed for a week.” 

“Oh my god,” Mark laughed into the pillow. 

“Friction burns are no joke, my sweet.” He carefully slid a finger into Mark, watched and felt him shift a little, relax again. “Okay?” 

“Assume I’m okay unless I say otherwise. I’m always amazed at how good that feels.” 

“Oh yeah?” Chris pulled his hand away, sat back. “Roll over.” 

“Okay.” Mark did, then blinked a little when Chris stuffed a pillow under his hips. “This seems a little intimidating.” 

Chris was surprised he’d admit it. He laid down along Mark’s side and kissed him. “Don’t be. We’re going to lay here and kiss, and touch each other a little, and hey, if I wind up inside you, no problem, right?” 

Mark shut his eyes, tensed a little at ‘inside you’. 

“Oh yeah?” He ran his hand down Mark’s chest, “the talking does it for you, too?” 

“With you, anyway.” 

Curious, he carefully slid two fingers back in, smiling when Mark moaned at him. “I think I get your point with the noise, too.” 

“Mmm. Created a monster. Oh. What was tha-? Yeah.” 

“Show you later.” Chris breathed into his ear, and kissed him again. He loved when it was like this, slow and lazy. The room was warm, and they had all day. He whispered into Mark’s ear, “tighten up around my fingers,” and when he did, he opened his fingers a little. 

Mark’s eyes rolled back in his head before they shut. 

“Again.” Chris breathed into his ear. 

“You’re killing me.” 

That was the idea. It probably would hurt this first time unless Mark was wound up a little. “I really am understanding the appeal now.” Chris couldn’t help but tell Mark, and pushed three fingers into him. 

Mark writhed a little, moaned. “How does this feel so good?” Chris took his time, because he REALLY didn’t want Mark to hate this. There was lube everywhere, and spit in the places there wasn’t lube, and Mark finally demanded “Fuck me already.” 

“That is so damn romantic.” Chris knelt between Mark’s legs but otherwise didn’t do anything. “It’s going to-” 

He came up off the bed, got Chris by both shoulders, kissed him, and pushed. When the wrestling was over, Mark was on top and Chris on his back under him. “Or this, this works.” He sat up and kissed Mark, and Mark shoved him back down, kissed him. 

“Talk me through this.” Mark demanded. 

Oh sure, NOW he was letting Chris take charge. But no, it’d go easier this way if Mark didn’t feel awkward. “Sort of stand up on your knees a little more. There you go.” He got everything lined up right, “Take it slowly, and stop if it hurts.” 

“Ngh.” Mark’s eyes were shut again and he was pressing downward slowly, and threw his head back and shouted when Chris’ cock finally pushed in. 

“Hold still a while, get used to it.” Chris said it through his teeth, trying to think of England or puppies or something other than having Mark over him, taking him, incoherent. He’d never forget the sight in front of him. 

Mark was still, eyes shut, trembling. “How does this feel so good?” 

“Nerve endings. Lots of nerve endings.” Chris did anatomy lessons in his head. “Very sensitive.” He shifted to listing the Periodic Table. Backward. 

Mark sank down maybe half an inch and groaned. This wasn’t going to last. Chris was about to go off himself, so he reached up and took Mark’s cock in hand. “Gonna come if you do that.” Mark sank down a little more, moaned again. 

“Good, because I’m not going to last.” 

Chris got some lube - anything to not think of Mark slowly taking him - and rubbed it around where he was sinking into Mark, and that was about it for both of them. As soon as Chris went back to jerking him off, Mark climaxed, sinking down as he did it, shouting. 

He couldn’t take it any more, pushed up into Mark, and let go. It felt like the end of the world, and that was exactly right. 

-

Mark woke up again, a little, when Chris tried to get up. “Mm. Stay.” 

“We need to clean up or you’re going to be even more sore than you are now.” 

True, but. “Few minutes.” 

Chris pulled the covers back over them, and Mark curled into him, shaking. “Okay?” 

“I’m fine.” He couldn’t stop shaking, which he knew from Mars was some damn adrenaline response to a big deal. "Shaking's adrenaline response." 

“I wasn’t so much asking about the physical.” 

Oh. “Shattered. Also want to try it again.” The feeling of Mark smiling against his shoulder was nice. “I’m not having a hetero freakout.” 

They kissed. “Whatever else is going on, if this was a hetero freakout, you wouldn’t be clinging to a completely naked man covered in spunk.” 

Mark hadn’t thought of that side of it. Then instead of shakes, he couldn’t stop laughing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have a patient in her early thirties who recently finished three years in space. Her bone density looks good, but I'm worried what another year and a half in space will do to it.” Chris finally said.
> 
> “You're worried about Johanssen's bone density if she goes back to Mars.”
> 
> “Yeah. Not so much NOW, she's managing it well, now. All the running, I know you hated it, but it's the best thing for pelvic and spinal bone density, that's why it's such a huge part of NASA's fitness program. But when she hits menopause? No idea. There's no one to compare her to and never will be, at least not in our lifetimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I owe everyone another chapter or two, so enjoy. Happy holidays!

Mark woke up a few hours later, and Chris was gone. Getting up was an adventure; every muscle in his lower body was sore. He tried to stretch his legs and lower back a little bit, then gave up and went to see where Chris had gone off to.

He was in their office, six MRI scans of spines and hips lined up on the large wall screen, staring at them and drinking a glass of wine.

Mark limped in, sat in his own office chair, wincing a little. “What's up?”

“MRIs from the crew. I had all of us get them for comparison when we did yours last month. How are you feeling?”

“I don't know how I can feel sore and relaxed at the same time.”

Chris chuckled. “My term for that is 'fucked out'.”

“Good to know. Why are you looking at our spines?”

“More comparing bone densities between all of us, seeing how they measure up to yours, mostly, but I'm also checking on Lewis and Johanssen. They run higher risks of osteoporosis later. Estrogen, menopause, that jazz.”

“How's it look?”

“Well, you're definitely the worst.” Chris said dryly.

“That's a relief.”

“Weirdly, yeah.” Chris looked at Mark for a moment, shook his head. “Stand up, come here.”

Mark did.

Chris positioned him in front of his desk, facing it. “Bend over, rest your elbows on the desk.”

“You JUST fucked me, and now you're bending me over your desk?”

He paused and let that run through his head. “There's a mental image. And an idea for later. Oddly, none of my fantasies involved putting you over my desk. Although you've changed that, thanks.” Chris ran his hands over Mark's ass and down his thighs, then started massaging right above his knees.

“Oh.” Mark shifted his feet a little. “That feels good.”

“That's the idea, Doctor Just Got Laid.” Chris slowly worked his way up Mark's legs, really digging in; his muscles were all like rocks. “Some of the soreness is plain old stiff muscles. You've used a lot of them in ways you never have before, other than the obvious.”

“Mmm.”

“You're still going to be sore, though.”

“I figured. 'S fine. Worth it.”

“Liked it, then?” Chris snugged his hands right up under Mark's butt cheeks and kneaded.

“Oh, god, that feels good. More of the pleasure-pain thing.” He leaned forward and rested his head on the desk. “It was incredibly personal for me, I can't overstate how much. Can't imagine doing it with anyone but you. I don't think I'll ever be as easygoing about it as you are; maybe it's a holdover from the hetero whatever, but the intimacy is extreme. Once in a while, letting you have me? Yeah.”

Chris leaned forward and kissed Mark's hip.

“So what's the deal with the spines? That was full-on brooding I interrupted.”

Chris kept kneading muscles thoughtfully. “There are privacy issues involved.”

“There are also psych issues involved and you need SOMEONE to talk to, even if it isn't me. Though I'd hope by now you know I can keep my mouth shut.”

“Oh, that's not the worry. It's an ethics thing. I could give it to you in case notes style, but you'd figure out who I was talking about in about two seconds. Impossible not to with a sample group of five people plus you, and you know them all.”

“Do it however you want.” Mark groaned and pushed back into his hands.

“Sit down, I can't talk about my patients while I'm rubbing your ass. Do you feel better?”

Mark stood and moved cautiously. “Yeah. Lots, thanks.” He wheeled his office chair over so he was beside Chris, sat and looked up at the wall screen.

“I have a patient in her early thirties who recently finished three years in space. Her bone density looks good, but I'm worried what another year and a half in space will do to it.” Chris finally said.

“You're worried about Johanssen's bone density if she goes back to Mars.”

“Yeah. Not so much NOW, she's managing it well, now. All the running, I know you hated it, but it's the best thing for pelvic and spinal bone density, that's why it's such a huge part of NASA's fitness program. But when she hits menopause? No idea. There's no one to compare her to and never will be, at least not in our lifetimes. Lewis, she's staying on Earth, we can monitor her more closely, treat her with meds as needed, and she's kept running at my suggestion.”

“If you mentioned your concerns to anyone at NASA...”

“They'd probably pull Johanssen off Ares Five. I don't want to do that. We don't KNOW it will be a problem. But damn, she's so YOUNG. Last priority, but we'd learn a hell of a lot from her, no matter what happened, but that'd make me as bad as the assholes I got rid of.”

“Hang on.” Mark patted his shoulder, left the room, came back shortly with a beer. “All right. I know this is a revolutionary, crazy idea, but have you considered talking to her, and letting HER make the choice?”

Chris stared at the screen. “I am really annoyed that you had to point that out.”

Mark laughed. “What were you going to do?”

“Start an 'experimental' program where half of the Ares Five crew gets the mineral supplements we gave you last month, and half gets a placebo, and make sure she's on the mineral supplement side of the experiment. It's sketchy as fuck as a double-blind, but it would help her. A sample group of six people makes the study bullshit anyway. Maybe give the supplement to all six, compare them to other Ares crews. Try to extend it into the actual mission, if the crew and NASA will go for it.”

“Not bad, either. Maybe both? Ask her what she thinks of the nutrition deal, too?”

“Oh sure, make sense.” Chris complained into his wine glass.

–

“It doesn't feel like it's been a month.” Mark complained, going into the bathroom of his hospital room to change into scrubs. “I am positive it has not been a month since the last IV.”

“Guess again. Come on, you get to spend the day asleep, what are you complaining about?” Chris told him. Ortega stood by with an IV stand hung with bags, trying not to laugh.

“I had stuff to do, you know.”

“Well, you can do it from here, or put it off until tomorrow. You're the boss.” Chris pointed to the bed instead of the orthopedic chair.

“Come on!”

“I'm not going to try getting you from the chair to the bed when you're half-looped on nausea medication.”

“Oh, right, the nausea med, we're doing that today?” Mark reminded him, “Don't forget about the strangulation rule.”

“I am NOT strangling you.”

“Strangulation rule?” Ortega, his nurse, interrupted politely.

Mark crawled into the bed, flopped out, and hung his arm over the side so Chris could start his IV. “The drug they use on me for nausea? It makes me talkative. The stuff I talk about? Not stuff I want people hearing. Chris probably doesn’t either, since most of it is about him.”

“Ah.” Ortega nodded, smiling. “We try to distract people with questions, when they do that. We can try that if we need to, since Beck won't strangle you.”

“Whatever keeps me from talking.” Mark agreed.

Chris used the time Mark was talking to set things up; Mark hated needles and any IV anything, so a distraction was great. “Doing the IV now.” He announced.

Mark nodded, shut his eyes. He must be getting used to all this, because it wasn't too upsetting this time. He stayed there with his eyes shut while they hooked up the nutrients and other stuff, and smiled a little when Chris tucked a blanket around him. “Thanks.”

“You okay?” Chris asked.

He was having a pity party. “Yeah. A little tired of all this shit, it's nothing.”

Chris kissed his temple and he smiled again, then dozed as the doctors all huddled with their plans of tests for the day. They all came over, hooked up more meds, and with his permission, knocked him out. Nighty night.

–

Mark woke up back in the room again, like magic. The sun was low, the day mostly over, and Chris was sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his hand and smiling. “What's the word?” He had to ask.

“The bone density drug worked. You're already back up to average bone density, and it's probably not done working yet.” Chris leaned in and kissed him, briefly, full on the lips.

“Hooray.” Mark was glad the weekend of agony after he'd been dosed with the stuff had been worth it.

He went back to sleep.

–

Chris wanted to get the wheelchair to get Mark into the house but as usual, Mark insisted on walking. He understood that refusal to take the easy way was how Mark survived Mars, he DID, but damn, he was going to hurt himself and neither of them needed more problems. He got his arm around him and carefully led him into the house. Bless Elon Musk for loaning them a place with no stairs.

There was a box on the porch and he nudged it aside to get Mark inside. “That's for you.” Mark told him. “Got held up because of lake-effect snow in fucking Ohio. Planetary weather pisses me off.” He staggered to his orthopedic chair in the living room and sort of wilted into it. “Open it, it's barely in time. Sorry I didn't get a chance to wrap it.”

Chris gave him what he knew was a deeply skeptical look, because Mark laughed at him. He got the box, opened it on the coffee table with his pocket knife, and. “Oh.”

“Almost too late, goddamn postal service.” Mark grumbled. “Happy Hanukkah. First day, right?”

He reached into the package and lifted out a menorah; it was silver, felt like real silver, and was decorated with stars and planets and moons. “It's beautiful. Where'd you get it?”

“I called your sister. She knew a Jewish artist who worked with my descriptions and some photos Johanssen got for me. After your description of that EVA, I thought you'd like the symbolism.”

Standing on the Hermes, looking at the planets around him. “Yeah. It's perfect. Thank you. When did you do this?” Custom work, that had to take a while.

“When we moved in together.” Mark shifted in his chair, looked like he was going to doze off. “Candles in the bottom drawer in the kitchen.”

“Thank you.” Chris ran his finger down one branch of the candlestick that held Jupiter and all its moons. “I love it, and I love that you thought of it.”

Mark smiled, eyes shut.

–

The week had been running smoothly. Even for Hanukkah the week before Christmas, when all hell was breaking loose and no one was paying attention to their jobs, Chris thought they were really establishing a workable schedule. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Mark and Chris were at SpaceX overseeing various projects and departments. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Chris went to NASA and Mark worked on his foundation.

So, of course, shit happened.

He was down in the medical lab when his personal phone rang. It was Hannah. "Mark walked in here, went into the bathroom, and started puking. He hasn't stopped."

"On my way." He turned to his assistant. "Emergency. Handle this. I'll let you know what's going on when I know."

Then he ran.

He slid around the corner into the office and it was the first time he'd ever seen Hannah at a loss, which didn't make him feel a damn bit better. From the bathroom he could hear Mark dry-heaving. “How long?”

“At least five minutes.”

Fuck.

Mark was vomiting blood. He knew from previous times like this the blood was from his throat, not his internal organs, but it still didn't do a damn thing to make him worry less. “Mark?” Mark leaned against him, so he knew Chris was there, which was something, but he kept on gagging over the toilet. Chris speed-dialed Sutherland. “Mark's been vomiting for at least five minutes, no sign of stopping. He's bringing up blood now.”

“I'll prescribe some medications, send them over. You're in your office?”

“Yes.”

She hung up.

Chris got a wet washcloth, laid it over the back of Mark's neck, then held him up and rubbed his back. There wasn't much else to do until the drugs got there.

Out in the office, Hannah barked out “Hold it, you are not going ANYWHERE.” in a voice Chris had never heard her use before.

There was someone else speaking, low enough Chris couldn't make out words. “Who is it?” He called.

“Doctor Ishikawa.” Hannah called back.

Mark spent mornings in Botany, so he might get some answers about what in hell had happened. “Have him stay, out there.”

“Got it.” Hannah confirmed. Then a moment later, “And who are you?” More low voices, then Hannah again, “Guy out here in scrubs, says his name is Ortega?”

“Let him in.” Chris told her.

A moment later, Mark's nurse appeared in the door, carrying a small tray full of syringes and drug bottles. He took in everything in one glance, put the tray on the sink, nodded to Chris, and moved to support Mark. “Hey buddy, it's me. Beck needs his hands free to drug you up.”

Chris flicked through the drugs, saw they had betadine instead of alcohol wipes, and blessed Sutherland. Detail people were his favorite people. He pulled on gloves, grabbed the Valium and a syringe.

“Mark?” He crouched down next to him. He had a power of attorney granting him permanent legal ability to make Mark's medical decisions for him but even so, he hated doing it unless he had to. “I want to give you some meds, in your veins. If that's okay, can you hold out your arm?”

He did, so thank god, that was one less thing to worry about. Chris pushed up the sleeve of the sweater he was wearing, swabbed the bend of his elbow, slid in the needle, and began slowly feeding the Valium in. Too fast and he'd quit breathing, but he wasn't going to let Mark vomit blood for another fifteen minutes until someone could arrange for an IV, hook it up, and get the drugs running.

“Is that, uh, safe?” Ortega asked carefully.

Chris concentrated on the plunger and the time on his watch. “Not particularly, but it's an ER technique we use when setting up an IV will take too long. It's a lot riskier when I have to lay on top of someone to hold them still while they're seizing, and people are shouting and wheeling us down a hallway on a gurney while I'm doing it.” Mark began to relax, finally. “Make sure you keep him still, there's an actual needle in this vein, not a catheter. We can't bend his arm.”

“Got it.” Ortega nodded easily.

Now that Mark's retching was slowing and getting less violent, Chris could hear what was going on in his outer office a little better.

“He said stay, you will stay. Sit down in that seat and wait, or I will put you in it, and you will not like it if I do.” Hannah was absolutely snarling, and Chris wondered if they could get her another raise so soon after the last one.

“Gotta say, your PA is kinda scary.” Ortega told him, clearly hearing the same thing. Mark tried to laugh, which was a good sign. “Mark? You there?”

He nodded, and Chris breathed a long breath of relief. “Done gagging yet?”

“I think.” Mark whispered. His voice was rough and raw.

“All right. We're going to get you turned, sit you on the toilet seat, but you have to keep your arm straight, I've got a needle in it. Understood?” Chris got a good grip on Mark's wrist.

Mark nodded.

“On three.” Chris told Ortega, and between the three of them, they got him moved. Chris continued dosing him, “Almost done with the med.”

Mark pulled the washcloth off his neck with his free hand, shaking, and wiped his face. “That sucked.”

“Don't talk, your throat is trashed.” Chris ordered, pulling the needle out of Mark's vein and pressing his thumb down, hard, on the gauze. “Take his arm, hold it up, get the bleeding stopped ASAP.”

Ortega quickly pulled on some gloves, then took over the direct pressure, lifting Mark's arm up so the puncture was above the level of his heart. “Never seen you in full blast before, Doc. Gotta say, it's impressive.”

“Doctor mode.” Mark ground out. “It's a thing.”

“Quit talking, for fuck's sake.” Chris told him. He turned toward the door. “Hannah!” Chris called.

“I will find you and break your legs.” Hannah said, then walked down the hall and stood right outside the door without looking in. “Yes?”

“Can you make a cup of that tea I showed you, please?” Chris asked.

“Of course. With honey?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Chris poked through the other things Sutherland had sent. He efficiently stripped Mark's sweater off, pulled up his sleeve, and dosed him with three anti-nausea drugs; he wasn't fucking around with this. Intramuscular injections this time, much faster and safer. He'd hold off on the major sedatives unless the vomiting started up again. “Think you're done?” He asked Mark.

Mark nodded, exhausted.

Ortega checked under the gauze. “Bleeding's stopped.”

“All right. Through the door behind you, that's Mark's office. His orthopedic chair is by the window, will be at your two o'clock if you're standing in the door facing the room.”

Ortega nodded. “Ready when you are.”

“On three, again.”

They got him through and seated, though Mark could barely hold himself up. Ortega put his feet on the footstool, found a blanket to put over him. Hannah arrived with a mug of tea, the medical kit from Chris' desk slung over her shoulder, and an empty trash can in the other hand.

“Damn, you're good.” Ortega told her, putting the trash can within vomiting distance of Mark and making sure he knew where it was.

“Thanks.” Chris told her gratefully. He put the tea aside, took the bag, and gave Mark a quick exam. Everything seemed all right, allowing for the fact he'd just gotten finished vomiting for fifteen minutes and then dosed to the gills on valium. He got a few sips of tea into Mark to calm his throat, and then asked the question everyone was thinking. “What happened?”

Mark grimaced, took the tea and clutched it between his own hands, drank more. “The still in Botany. Someone knocked it over. It practically exploded. Glass and booze, everywhere.”

Well, fuck. “Never should have let them license the damn thing.” Chris told him.

Mark gave a knowing snort-nod kind of thing.

Ortega, who knew Mark's PTSD triggers very well, simply winced.

“All right. Can you hang with Ortega for a few, let me deal with some stuff?” Mark nodded. “With the door shut?” Mark nodded again. Chris kissed him on the temple where his silver hair was growing in, then stood. “Back in a few.”

In the outer office, there was a standoff. Hannah sat at her desk, glaring, and Ishi was in a visitor's chair, looking worried, shooting Hannah apprehensive looks. Chris closed the door behind him. “He's all right.” He told Hannah, watching her relax slightly. He turned to Ishi.

“How is he?” Ishi asked. “We have no idea what happened, he walked out of Botany with no warning.”

“The smell of alcohol is a PTSD trigger for him.” Chris glared. “If you tell anyone else, or let him know I told you, there will be hell to pay for all of us. Starting with you.”

Hannah hissed.

“Oh shit. Shit.” Ishi paced a little. “We didn't know. I swear.”

He never thought they did. Botany was a bunch of lunatics, but they weren't cruel or even selfish, not a one of them. “Now you do.” Chris said.

Ishi nodded. “I'll make sure the still isn't rebuilt, we'll run the blowers twenty-four seven, air out everything. He's not due back until Monday, by then the fumes should be gone.”

“The only reason that still was there in the first place was because he didn't want to be a bad guy.” He paused for effect. “I am more than happy to be a bad guy.” Chris gave him the level look he used in the ER to keep patients' families in line.

“Understood. You don't have to be. I'll take care of it.” Ishi darted a worried look at Hannah, then left as quickly as possible.

“A still. Like to make booze.” Hannah repeated.

“Yep.”

“In Botany. What in hell are they DOING down there?” Hannah demanded.

“Whatever they want?” Chris tried.

Hannah made a growling noise. Chris sort of pitied Botany. But not really.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We're doomed.” Chris told Mark. “Our friends are becoming friends. It's only a matter of time before they gang up on us.”
> 
> “Oh honey, like we haven't already done that.” Johanssen patted Chris' head. “You're adorable.”

The only good thing about having a bad day, Mark thought, was the Chris Coddling in the evenings. Even that was kind of an annoyance, in that he NEEDED coddling, but dinner in bed with a bad movie was always really, really good. Even if the movie sucked.

“This is the dumbest movie I've ever seen.” Mark croaked. His throat was still raw.

“Quit talking and eat your soup. And don't make me remind you about your Martian movie obsession.”

He shut up and ate the egg drop soup Chris had made for him. “Your Hanukkah present for tonight is in the top drawer of my dresser, but I don't know if you deserve it.”

“You got me a present for every night?”

“Of course I did.” What's the point of an awesome holiday with lots of presents, if you didn't get lots of presents? He'd wanted to do the same last year, but they hadn't been together and he'd worried that showering Chris with gifts would be a little creepy. “They aren't expensive gifts, mostly. It's the one wrapped in blue with silver rocket ships.”

Chris kissed him on the temple. “Thanks.”

“Don't thank me until you see it.”

“Thanks. And quit talking.”

Mark rolled his eyes and shoveled in more soup.

Chris got the gift, opened it, then sat and laughed for a while. “Nice. It's perfect.”

“Now that you don't have patients looking at you every shift, I can get you the really questionable tee shirts.” This one said 'addicted to placebos'.

“I'll wear it tomorrow. NASA will love it.”

“Make sure the assholes who keep sending me info on addiction treatment see it.”

–

“Look. I know tomorrow is your holiday party for Botany and Enviro. But today there's nothing much scheduled and Hannah is happy to work with you from here, I already asked her. Please, stay home and rest?”

Mark hated this. Some fucking PTSD attack shouldn't land him in bed, but here he was. After a night of sleep, his throat still felt like he'd been gargling razor blades, and he wasn't a hundred percent sure he'd thrown off the elephant dose of valium Chris had hit him with the day before.

Chris mistook the pause for disagreement, apparently, because he sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “Please? I love you, I hate seeing you suffer.”

THAT goddamn argument. Next he was going to start with – yep. Puppy eyes, on schedule. “Damn you.”

“Do you need anything? Are you nauseated again? You can call me any time, I'll be at NASA, popping back here won't be hard at all-”

“I'm a grown-ass adult. I'm a little tired and have a sore throat, for fuck's sake. I can handle a quiet day at home. Quit manipulating me.”

Chris blinked. “I'm not manipulating you. I'm trying to be honest.”

“You love me, you've said please, and you're giving me puppy eyes. How'm I supposed to resist that?”

“It's not on purpose?”

That's what made it so goddamn annoying; it was completely sincere. “Fine, I'll work from here. By text and e-mail to save my throat, all right?” Because holy fuck, did he feel like shit.

“Thank you.” Chris said, again with the damned sincerity. He leaned forward and kissed him, deeply. “Don't forget to eat.”

“Don't push your luck.”

-

“You wanted to see me, Doctor Beck?” Johanssen asked from his office doorway. She managed to get quotation marks around the Doctor Beck and make him sound ridiculous, without shifting the tone a bit.

Taking the piss out of people had always been one of her greatest skills. He wondered what the commander of the Ares Five mission thought of it.

“Yes, come in and shut the door, please, Ms Johanssen.” He'd sent the request for a meeting through official channels so she'd get the point that this was serious and about her health, as one of her doctors, but apparently she was going to give him shit anyway. He expected no less from her.

“Sure.” She shut the door. “I assume this is some attempt to make things official, but if you keep up with the title bullshit I'm going to find your baby pictures and put them on Twitter.” She sneered a little. “Doctor Beck.”

He sucked his teeth at her, and she grinned. “Fine. Want some coffee? I'm not making it with caffeinated water for you.” The first medical discussion he'd ever had with her had been over her caffeine intake. She'd laughed in his face. Pretty much every other discussion since then was about over-caffeination.

“Yeah, cool.” Johanssen dropped into a chair in the conversation area of his office, put her feet on the coffee table. “How serious is this?”

“Not very, and kind of really?”

“That's comforting.”

“Can you make sure no one's recording this that we're unaware of?” He wouldn't put it past Teddy to spy on him, and while that was fine, he wasn't going to spill anyone's personal medical information if he could possibly help it. Especially when it might get them pulled off a major mission.

That got him a dark, even stare for a long moment. “Yeah, sure.” She pulled out her phone, poked around on it.

Chris put the coffee on the table next to her feet, sat down next to her with his own mug, and waited for the all clear.

“No one's recording, and I created a glitch in security so no one's even looking.” She grabbed the coffee, slurped up a mouthful. “What's up?”

“Full disclosure. I've been looking at your bone scans, comparing them to everyone else on our crew, and the other Ares crews, trying to see if I can make any predictions about future issues.”

“Issues.” She repeated.

“Bone density problems like Mark's having.”

“Ah.”

“Problem is, women have all sorts of risk factors men don't, and there haven't been enough women in space long term to get a handle on them. You'll be the first woman to return to Mars. After an unprecedented length of time in space already. You're a wild card.”

Johanssen sat back, gave him a completely unreadable look. “And?”

“And I'm telling you, you're an unknown. We have no way to predict how you're going to age. If you return to Mars, what little we can predict is out the window.”

“So you're pulling me off Ares Five.” She said evenly.

Chris' jaw dropped. “No! Hell no.”

Johanssen closed her eyes, took a deep breath, took another swig of coffee.

“Should have led with that, huh?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, shoulda.”

“Sorry. It's literally unknown, what's going to happen. You could be fine. You could wind up in a wheelchair with brittle bones once you hit menopause. Either way NASA would learn a hell of a lot, but I refuse to send you off with a wave, unaware of the risks. It's a choice YOU should make, so I'm giving you the information to do it. But you need to start with the knowledge that there are more risk factors for you than anyone else. In history.”

“What's your best guess?”

“I can't begin to-”

“Beck, come on. You're a fucking genius. You've got SOME suspicions. You're you. I spent three years living with you and two years more training with you. I know how your brain works. You never stop turning ideas over, coming at them from different angles.”

Chris stared into his coffee. “I think you'll be fine short-term, for the mission. THINK. I might consider pulling you, or at least bringing in more specialists if I thought otherwise. When you get back, again short term, you'll likely recover a little slower than the others, but you'll recover. Especially if you keep up the running, which you're supposed to do anyway. I can make you a list of foods to load up on. I'll want to monitor you closely.”

“Fair.”

“After menopause, that's the big unknown. It's probable you'll wind up on the supplements we've developed for Mark, with the same PT program, diet, all that. Might want to start with the program before you hit menopause, build up all the bone density you can.”

“By then you'll have developed at least five other drugs and a couple more nutrition therapies for Mark that you can use on me.”

Chris blinked at her.

“Oh, come on, you already got a Nobel for one.”

“I- we can't count on that.”

“No, but still. Odds are good. You developed it in space with Vogel for a lab partner and almost no resources. Now you have two departments of specialists at your command, fully equipped labs, and the US government and SpaceX to provide anything you need.” She smiled a little. “It's a major, common problem for astronauts, lots of people all over the planet, and Mark. Tell me you're not working on it already, with another twenty ideas percolating.”

Chris shrugged uncomfortably. He REALLY wanted to find an effective bone density drug that didn't cause screaming pain for hours after it was administered. If that was impossible, he'd start looking into ways to treat bone pain. He might have already started digging into that one; humanity at large could use it, too.

“So you brought me in here to warn me I'm in uncharted territory. Basically.”

“Yes.”

“Are you my official doctor of record?”

“No, that would be King, your Ares Five flight surgeon. Don't you remember, I took over all your medical care ahead of Ares Three, so you guys would get used to coming to me? Plus you got assigned to someone else when I left NASA.”

“Yeah, but I hadn't realized we were doing the mission doctor thing yet. Can you get yourself put on as first lead after him, then? Now that you're back?”

“Are you positive you want to do that?”

“What, favoritism or some shit? Yeah, I'm positive. I want the best. That's you.”

“Oh.” Chris felt flattered. “Okay, we can do that, there'll be paperwork to sign and stuff.”

“Cool. I guess since we're talking about it now anyway, would it be too much to ask if I made you my emergency contact, too? With legal proxy and all that crap?”

“What?” That was normally reserved for family or spouses.

“I've watched you with Mark. If it's not too much to ask. If I'm in an accident or something, I'd like knowing you'll show up at the hospital and make sure everything's done right. Wrath of Beck, and all that. If I landed in a hospital unconscious, you'd sure as hell bring Mark along and between the two of you I know I'd be fine.”

“All right. It's more paperwork, I'll have Hannah get it all set up if that's okay with you, you'll have to sign it all.”

“Cool. Let me know.” She stood, looked at him for a long moment as he stood with her. “You know, it's not really that you're a genius and brilliant and all that. The genius thing helps, but that's not why we all trust you so much.”

“Oh?” He was at a loss. The entire conversation had not gone the way he'd expected.

“It's that you care.” Johanssen gave him a quick hug, and then pulled his head down to kiss him on the cheek. “Quit worrying. You told me everything, after that it's my fault.”

Chris stood there, watching her go. That had been one of the best professional compliments he'd ever received.

Two hours later, he got a text from Martinez. -J told me you're her medic of record and stuff. Me too, have the paperwork done for me. Please? I'd have asked sooner if I knew it was possible.-

–

“If I can have your attention!” Mark called from the front of the room. “I know you're all hopeless at parties and social skills, so instead of any sort of introductions, grab name tags and put them on so you can figure out who you are.” There was a lot of laughter at that. “Buffet is open all day, and I thought instead of some boring holiday party where we all make small talk about the lives we don't have,” more laughter, “you'd prefer a brainstorming project with no rules.” He waited for the dramatic moment, then announced, “Design a zero gravity wetland. Go.” He waved to the smart boards on all the walls. “Make me proud. Or at least don't end civilization.” He gave them his 'go forth and do mayhem' shooing motion, and everyone applauded.

He made himself a plate at the brunch buffet, some coffee, and went to lean against the wall next to Chris. “What do you think?”

“I think you understand your minions very well.” Chris took his coffee and started drinking it.

“Hey.”

“Tea until your throat heals.”

“For that I'm eating all the blueberry muffins.” Chris loved them.

“You hate muffins.”

“Yes, but I'd win.”

Chris shook his head, then froze as something on a smartboard caught his eye. He stepped forward. “You can't plumb it like that.” He told the group. “The resistance in the network of small pipes? It'll push all the water over into the large overflow without some kind of valve to stop it.”

Everyone stared at him. “Aren't you a doctor?” Someone asked in confusion.

“Yeah.” Chris agreed. “I'm also a microbiologist.” He pointed at the grid of small pipes. “Capillaries.” Then he gestured at the large bypass pipe. “Artery. You do this in surgery, you'll wind up amputating because of tissue death. You need a valve. Or a vein. Given it's actual plumbing, I suspect a valve will work better. Know what makes veins work for this? THEY HAVE CHECK VALVES IN THEM.”

Everyone looked at each other, looked at Chris, and one of the engineers silently wiped out the join where all the pipes branched off and started drawing something else.

Mark grinned. Yeah, this was gonna be awesome. With luck Chris would hang around the whole day and teach the kids how important cross-discipline design was.

“You know what would really make this ecosystem run smoothly?” Chris asked them all with a smile. At the blank looks, he smiled wider. “Fish. Also an excellent food source.”

Everyone gaped at him.

Chris dropped down into the chair next to Mark and finished his coffee, satisfied.

–

Mark and Chris had their feet up, watching a heated argument between Botany and Enviro over the composition of pipes that was getting interesting. Enviro wanted copper alloy, for grunge-fighting properties. Botany informed them 'that will kill the plants, you know, the plants that are the fucking POINT of this entire thing?' Enviro told them to use copper-tolerant plants.

Mark was pretty sure that in all his years of education and experience he'd never even HEARD the term 'copper tolerant plants' before. They had to exist, certainly, but it wasn't something anyone he ever knew kept data on. Engineers were so cute. So theoretical.

“Think we should intervene?” Chris asked, not moving.

“Eh.” Mark slouched down and took another swig of tea. “Nothing like a good fight to encourage understanding.”

“That's how you got all those scars on your knuckles?”

Mark laughed. “Nah, that was international diplomacy. Same idea, slightly different scale.”

“Of course it was.”

Martinez popped up from nowhere. “Hey. Are you sure that's not gonna turn into a fight?” He nodded to where two engineers were squaring off with Ishi.

“Nope.” Mark said easily. He'd put twenty bucks on Ishi if it came down to it. Unless Jones jumped in, in which case they were all in trouble.

Hannah walked into the room and cleared her throat. Everyone froze, looked at her for one long moment, then suddenly got a lot more diplomatic. She strode over. “I've got all the paperwork for Major Martinez and Beth.”

“Paperwork?” Mark asked.

“Medical stuff.” Johanssen told him. “That was badass.” She told Hannah, and they exchanged fist-bumps.

“Wait, why am I Major Martinez and she's Beth?” Martinez asked Hannah.

Hannah blinked. “Because she asked me to call her Beth?”

“Then it's Rick. Or Martinez.”

They smiled at each other.

“We're doomed.” Chris told Mark. “Our friends are becoming friends. It's only a matter of time before they gang up on us.”

“Oh honey, like we haven't already done that.” Johanssen patted Chris' head. “You're adorable.”

–

“So that thing you did.” Mark murmured in Chris' ear, curling around him and stroking a hand down his thigh.

Chris pushed his ass back into Mark's hips. “Mm. You'll have to be more specific. I do lots of things.”

Mark reached around, put his hand under Chris' face and turned it enough that they could kiss. Chris rolled onto his back and wrapped an arm up around Mark's neck. “When you were opening me up. With your fingers. I asked you what you did and you laughed and said you'd tell me later.”

“Oh, that.” Chris pulled him down and kissed him some more. “I learned some good stuff in anatomy and physiology.” He grinned. “Want a lesson?”

“Hands on?” Mark asked, smiling.

“Definitely.” Chris rolled away, came back with lube. He shoved a pillow under his hips and slung one leg up over Mark. “Hand.”

Mark held it out, and Chris squirt some lube on his fingers, took his hand, and- “Oh, FUCK.” -slid his own index finger into himself along with Mark's. “I don't know why this always kills me, but it does.”

Chris closed his eyes and bit his lip, holding their hands still for a long moment. “Always? When did I do this before?”

“That night when you rode me and were too impatient to let me do much of anything but lay there.”

“Ah, yeah. That was a good night.” Chris turned his head, and they kissed, his body gradually sprawling out as he got used to their fingers inside him. “Mm. Outer sphincter, everyone knows this one.” He ran their fingers around the very outside edge, twisting and sighing as he did. “There's a second, inside an inch or so.” He moved their fingers further in, and Mark closed his eyes. Partly to concentrate on what he was feeling, but also to avoid losing control when Chris bit his bottom lip the next time. “There, feel it?” Chris tightened his muscles, and Mark could, indeed, feel it.

“Yeah.” Mark ran his finger along the edge of the inner ridge, like he had the outer, and watched Chris shiver and gasp.

“You have the best instincts.” He closed his eyes, made a broken noise when Mark moved his finger again. “Both have lots and lots of sensory nerves in them, to help them work proper-” he broke off when Mark stroked him carefully again. “God, that's good. Yeah.” Mark kissed him a while, kept stroking and touching, seeing where the most sensitive places were. Chris had pulled his own finger out with a moan and was now rocking his hips, enjoying it. He pulled himself together a little. “So the massage. Ah, do that again.”

Mark did, resting his own face on Chris' shoulder, groaning at the sounds Chris was making.

“Put in two fingers.” Chris whispered, so Mark did, carefully. “Love your hands. Okay, open them up, little more-” Mark stopped when he jerked and moaned again. “There. Pull them out until it's a pretty tight fit, oh god that's good, and twist your- AH.”

Mark turned his hand again, rubbing his fingers along all those nerves Chris had showed him, and watched with interest as Chris writhed on the bed. “That's how it made me feel, too.”

Chris choked out a laugh. “You were beautiful.” He twisted against Mark's hand. “I'll never forget how gorgeous you were. Will you please fuck me already?”

“How can I say no when you ask so graciously?” He lubed everything up, crawled over Chris, and slid himself inside. He was getting used to having sex with a guy, with Chris, and yet it was new and amazing every single time. He didn't think that would ever change; it wasn't the fact he was having sex with a guy. It was Chris. “Hold still a minute, let your body get used to me.”

“Don't want to.” Chris wrapped his legs up around Mark's waist, and pushed himself upward.

Mark brought down his weight, laid on him until Chris couldn't move, pinned his wrists with his hands. “Hold still, dammit.” Chris' eyes rolled back in his head and he threw his head back, gasping. That was interesting. “More of that 'being taken' kink of yours?”

Chris tried to move his hands. He smiled when he couldn't. “I don't know. Maybe it's all you.”

Mark slowly slid out, pushed back in, enjoyed the gasp and Chris' legs tight around him. “Being taken by me.” He changed the angle slightly, moved out and in again slowly.

“Mm, yeah.” Chris tried to push up, again found himself pinned. “Move.”

“No.” Mark kissed him, licked his bottom lip, bit, kissed some more. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Please move.”

“This is what you get for hooking up with a geezer. We have stamina.” Mark changed the angle again, pulled out, pushed back in, and watched Chris jolt against his hands and shout. “Yeah, that's the angle I want, huh? Got your prostate that time?”

Chris' eyes were dilated and dark, his face flushed, and he couldn't catch his breath. “Mark. Please. Harder, faster, something.”

Mark withdrew, slid back in again, keeping the same slow pace. He leaned down and whispered into Chris' ear. “No.” Then he did it again.

“Oooh, god.” Chris said weakly.

“Open your eyes.” Mark told him, continuing his slow pace. He waited until those black lashes lifted. “There you are. Tell me.”

Another whimper. “Tell you what?”

“Anything.” Mark kept the pace, but pushed in a little harder.

“Don't know what- please, again. Yes. That. Please. Please.”

Mark sped up a little, thrust harder, because Chris begging always drove him wild. “What do you want, baby?”

“You. Us. Like this. Always. Love you, oh god.” Then Chris came, using his legs to pull himself up onto Mark, shouting.

Mark watched, entranced. “So pretty.” Mark whispered. “All mine. I love you too.” He slowed.

“No. Don't stop. Keep going.”

“Aren't you sensitive?”

Chris laughed, with a moan at the end. “Yeah. I'll get noisy, even by our standards.”

Oh, well then. Mark moved his hands from Chris' wrists to his hips, closed his eyes, and thrust again, harder than he had been, shivering at the sound Chris made. “Tell me if I hurt you. I can't always tell when you're like this.”

“I promise.”

Chris was shivering, all over, and when Mark thrust in, he cried out. 

He laid his head down on Chris' chest and didn't stop. The sounds, Chris' hands clutching him, his legs wrapped around him, more noise. Chris pulled him up by his hair and they kissed, rough and hard, and this time Chris held his face and watched him as he came, so intense there was an edge of pain to it, and all he could see were those atmosphere blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, gosh, another chapter ending in a sex scene. I know y'all hate that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I've been keeping an eye on the investigation with Beck. The thing with the inappropriate behavior?”
> 
> Of course she was. 'Keeping an eye on' meant poking through the computers of a federal agency, but since when did that stop Johanssen? Woman hacked a spaceship in transit from Mars to earth, for fuck's sake, what was a government organization. “All right?”

“Fuck, Chris, are you all right?”

Chris was slumped against the wall of the shower, magnificently fucked out, trying to summon the energy to wash his hair. He turned slowly to Mark. He felt drunk, could list the brain chemicals doing it, but “I'm fantastic.” Mark didn't smile back, but stepped forward and took one of Chris' hands, turning it in his. Chris looked down; there were bruises and lines of broken blood vessels around his wrists, how'd- Oh. Chris felt himself smiling. “It's fine. No pain.” He wiggled his fingers. “Everything works, didn't even notice.”

Mark's eyes were wide and horrified.

Well hell. “No, sweetheart, it's fine. Better than fine.” He still wasn't able to stand up properly, he didn't think, so he pulled Mark in for a kiss. “If you put bruises like this on me, on purpose? I'd kick your ass. Or get us into counseling. But grabbing me a little too tight during sex? That's erotic as hell.” Now that he thought about it, Chris was pretty sure he had matching bruises on his hips. Mm. Fucked out.

“Sorry.”

“I'm not.” Chris slung his arms around Mark's waist, kissed him some more. “I've got some gel you can put on them when we get out of the shower if you want to, it will help.” Mark still looked a little upset. “Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get around to putting bruises on you the same way, sooner or later.”

Mark looked a little startled at that, then gave a reluctant laugh. “Fine. Come stand under the water, I'll wash you down.”

“Best boyfriend ever.”

–

Chris woke up Sunday morning, and Mark wasn't in bed, which was strange. Weekends were celebrated by slow, lazy sex in the mornings. But it was early, and Mark wasn't there. He frowned, got up and threw on a robe, wandering through the condo.

He was in the kitchen, wearing an old tee shirt, jeans, and the ridiculous ruffled pink apron Marissa had given him after Thanksgiving, when she repeated her opinion that Mark needed to cook for Chris. Often. Since then, Mark had worn it once or twice, and Chris adored it, adored him; he was so masculine, so confident about it he would wear a pink frilly apron while cooking dinner. The masculinity was a turn-on, but the self-confidence, the willingness to laugh at himself? That made him irresistible.

Mark slid something into the oven, turned, and jumped a little when he saw Chris in the door. “Damn, need to put a bell on you.”

“Morning.” Chris stepped forward and kissed him softly. “I like the apron.”

“Of course you do.” Mark turned away, poured him a cup of coffee, and then held it out of reach until Chris kissed him again.

“What are you doing?”

“Didn't I say?” Mark asked innocently.

“You know you didn't.”

“It's not the last night of Hanukkah, but we always have family dinners on Sundays, so I invited everyone over-”

“You're making Hanukkah dinner. For me.” Chris leaned forward, pressed his face to Mark's shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Well it's more for everyone, but yeah. You aren't getting home this year, so I thought you'd appreciate the attempt. I'm not making any promises about quality. This is a little more complex than my usual.”

“It's fine. Perfect. What are we having?” Chris kissed him again, had to.

“Brisket with garlic and thyme, tzimmes, kugel, a cheese plate, and I got some challah, but you're doing the latkes. Potatoes. I absolutely refuse. I'm also doing some roasted brussels sprout thing, with bacon. I know your family's Reform, but that's hilarious, I don't care what you say.”

“You got Mom's recipes. You're making my traditional family Hanukkah dinner.”

“Of course I am. Who else's Hanukkah dinner am I gonna make? I come from a long line of agnostic Presbyterians.”

Chris put aside the coffee and wrapped Mark in his arms. “Thank you. I can't say how much.”

“You're welcome. Happy Hanukkah, baby.”

Everyone piled into the condo, bringing bottles of wine and gifts for Chris, and they toasted the holiday and each other while the food finished cooking. Marissa brought her own knives and grater to help Chris make the latkes, and they disappeared into the kitchen with their own bottle of wine. Mark went in a while later to check the brisket and nearly gagged at the smell of raw potatoes. He held his breath, checked on the food, and immediately left for the back porch, where he took deep breaths and stared hard at the nice green not-Martian landscape. Not Mars, not Mars, not Mars.

“You okay?” Martinez asked, ducking out of the house.

Was he ever? “Do me a favor, there's a pill bottle on the dresser in the bedroom, next to my wallet and pocket change and stuff. Can you bring it to me, with a beer?”

Martinez gave him a look. It was the same look he gave David when David was trying to pull something. “Yeah, I'll be right back.”

He was. Mark poked through the contents of the pill bottle, took an anxiety med and then a couple different nausea medications. If he didn't eat this meal, there would be questions. If he could avoid upsetting Chris on a day he went to some trouble to make happy, that'd be delightful.

“Should I be worried about you washing down pills with beer?” Martinez sat near him, wearing the serious look he almost never got. Shit.

“No? Maybe if it was booze. Or stronger drugs.” Mark stood, put the pill bottle in his pocket, sat again. “Can we not tell Chris about this?”

“If you tell me instead.”

“Damn it, I hate when you're all adult and emotionally mature.”

Martinez laughed. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Smell of raw potatoes in the kitchen.” Mark explained, almost gagging at the words alone.

“Ah.”

“I make it a joke, because potatoes are fucking everywhere. But the smell of raw potatoes? I don't wanna call it a PTSD trigger because it's too fucking stupid. I wrote my goddamn doctoral thesis about nightshades, and now one gives me anxiety attacks. It's the dumbest thing in the history of the world.”

“But it sets you off.”

Mark held the beer bottle against his temple. “Yeah. Pretty much. Fuckin' potatoes. Why couldn't it be eggplant?”

“All potatoes, or just raw?”

“Raw's worst, by a lot, but boiled can also get intense. Thankfully the fancy stuff at restaurants is so far away from what I dealt with my brain doesn't seem to associate them.”

“Does Beck know this? Or your shrink? You've gotta have a shrink, no way Beck would let you get away with not having one.”

“...no.”

“No you don't have a shrink, or no you haven't told them?”

“Haven't told him.”

“I'll run interference for you today, get Marissa to help. If you talk to them both later.”

“Yes, Dad.”

Martinez pulled out his phone, texted. “You think the dad thing is an insult, but I'm a damn good dad, and I've seen you with yours. Marissa's turning on the exhaust fans in the kitchen, Johanssen's on the rest of the house.”

“Thanks.”

“Any time. Happy to help, but I gotta know this shit. I'm not fuckin' psychic, you know.”

-

Dinner was a success, which surprised the hell out of Mark because he'd never made any of the dishes before. When everyone toasted his skill, he gave all credit to Chris' mother, who'd sent him the world's most detailed recipes AND a timeline for how to make all of the dishes at once, developed over years of Hanukkah dinners with her own family. If the woman ever got tired of being a doctor, she could earn a damn fine living in engineering logistics. Mark would happily write her a reference letter. After, Chris insisted that those who didn't cook, cleaned, and dragged Martinez off to the kitchen to do dishes.

“We need to talk.” Johanssen appeared at Mark's elbow.

“Shit, don't give me a heart attack, that's all I need. Have you been taking lessons from Hannah?”

“Maybe.” Johanssen grinned, and behind her, Hannah herself giggled. “Come on. I don't want to ruin the holiday, but this is urgent.” She pulled Mark and Hannah into the office, shut the door. “I'm including Hannah in this because she needs to know what's going on and you assholes never tell her.”

“We do too.” Mark protested.

Hannah snorted.

“Fine, whatever.” Mark gave up, made a 'go ahead' gesture with his hands.

“I've been keeping an eye on the investigation with Beck. The thing with the inappropriate behavior?”

Of course she was. 'Keeping an eye on' meant poking through the computers of a federal agency, but since when did that stop Johanssen? Woman hacked a spaceship in transit from Mars to earth, for fuck's sake, what was a government organization. “All right?”

“Someone's trying to sell the narrative that Mars turned you gay, you got back aboard the Hermes, went after Chris because he was the only single dude, and you guys knocked boots the whole way home. Apparently Chris is so damn stupid he’d fall for that. I really don’t know what I’m most insulted by, in these charges. Like I’d be dumb enough to let a doctor who was a letch treat me. The entire investigation is focused on what you two got up to between Mars and Earth.” Johanssen grinned a little. “Lewis has already had strong words with them, shall we say, and Vogel called them up and told them that he was in Sick Bay with the two of you almost constantly, developing the nutrient therapies, and they're all a bunch of – it was something German that's lost in translation, but roughly they're morons. But ruder. And in German. Martinez and I also told them that nothing went on and they're assholes. I actually used the word ‘asshole’.”

Go, crew. He rubbed a finger over his temple where a headache was brewing. “What's going on with the Ares lab investigations?” No way in hell was Johanssen not keeping an eye on those, too.

“All three doctors have lost their licenses and are being investigated for criminal behavior. It's very likely Chen and Bernstein will be found guilty of assault, multiple counts. They're still deciding what charges to press in Helm's case. Chen's assistant got arrested yesterday for sending the threat to Hannah. Not that anyone's bothered to tell US that.” She frowned. “Fuckin' federal agencies. There's a reason I keep an eye on them.”

A plan was forming in Mark's head. “Do you still have all the security video from the Hermes? I know it's not supposed to exist, but I also know you.”

“It's possible I still have it, yes.”

Hannah laughed outright.

“Can you get me the video from the first twenty-four hours I was back on the Hermes, as well as all the medical notes and records Chris kept for the whole trip back?”

“Sure. I'll get them in your in box by morning for sure, probably tonight.”

“Thanks. I'll take it from here.” Mark told her.

“WE.” Hannah corrected him. “WE will be taking it from here.”

Oh, fine.

–

Martinez cornered Chris in the kitchen, took one of his hands, and unbuttoned the cuff of the denim shirt he'd thrown on over his tee. With the sleeve pushed up, the dark bruises and broken blood vessels around Chris' wrist were really obvious, especially when Martinez laid his hand over the bruises and pressed to the finger prints, demonstrating he knew how Chris had gotten it. “We're gonna talk about this.”

Chris fought the urge to close his eyes. The sex that had gotten him those bruises had been spectacular. “It's fine. What are you, psychic?”

“Marissa noticed it earlier, told me. How'd you get the bruises, Beck?”

What a stupid question, it was obvious how, when Martinez himself had his own hand gripped around his wrist the same way. “Aren't you the one who screams when our sex life comes up?”

“Because I feel like your brother. I'm allowed to worry when my brother shows up with bruises from his partner, ask if he's okay.”

Oh. When you put it like that. He pulled his hand back, gently. “Things got a little rough. We both enjoyed it. It's fine.”

“Beck.”

Fuck. He hoped there wasn't shrieking. “He grabbed on a little too tight, in the throes. I didn't even notice at the time, and it doesn't hurt. There's no damage done. I'll tell you the same thing I told Mark when he noticed and was horrified; if he'd put them on me on purpose, I'd either get us into counseling or kick his ass. But it wasn't on purpose. All it was, was hanging on a little too tight.”

Martinez heaved a deep breath. “All right. Okay. Let me try to forget this discussion, then. I just-” He shook his head.

“You want to make sure we're both okay. We are.” He paused, debated. What the hell, Martinez brought it up. “Do not mention this to Mark. He's already angry at himself over it, and I'd like to do what got me the bruises again some day. It was AMAZING.”

“Sweet baby Jesus, don't tell me this stuff.”

“You started it.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've got a pile of resignation letters here on your desk.”
> 
> “Cool. Who's leaving?” He hoped Helm's assistant was.
> 
> “Ah. Everybody.”

Monday, Chris and Mark walked into their office, and- “What are you doing here?” Mark demanded.

Hannah gave him a dirty look. “Running a circus, what's it look like?” She went back to her keyboard, then ignored them as she answered a phone call. “Good morning, Doctor Watney's office.”

Mark waited until she hung up. “You're going to LA for the week, for Christmas. You have the time blocked on the office calendar.” He pointed to the dry-erase board on the wall, color-coded for the three of them and their appointments. “What the hell? I will drag you to LA by your ear, you need a break.” If he and Chris were swamped setting up their departments, then Hannah had it worse, dealing with everything the two of them were dumping on her to accomplish it.

“My plane leaves at two. I leave here at noon, my bags are packed and tucked into the coat closet. Chill.”

“You have the day off.” Chris said gently.

“I want to get the Monday stuff done first. It'll make catching up next week easier.”

“Right.” Mark said. “It's pretty sad when I'm the least workaholic person in the office, you know.”

“I'll get over it.” Hannah answered another call.

Chris' phone rang and he went into his office to take it, and Mark waited until Hannah got off the phone again.

“Your appointment with Doctor Sutherland is in fifteen minutes. It'll take ten to hike across the campus.” Hannah told him.

“All right, all right, I'm going. Have a good holiday if I don't see you sooner.”

Hannah looked away from her desk and smiled at him happily. “Thanks. You too, Mark.”

–

Chris shut the door to his office and answered his cell phone. “Beck.”

“Hey, boss.” It was Ravi Benton, his new research assistant. He spent most of his time at NASA, since Chris didn't.

“Hey, Ravi. What's up?”

“You know how you said you expected more trouble from the department?”

“Please tell me no more laws have been broken.”

“No. Word got out that Chen's assistant was arrested Saturday, though. I've got a pile of resignation letters here on your desk.”

“Cool. Who's leaving?” He hoped Helm's assistant was.

Ravi cleared his throat. “Ah. Everybody.”

He blinked for a second at that one. “Who's left? Anyone?”

“The interns, Singh, and Azikiwe.”

Trainees and the two lowest-rung scientists, neither of whom were medical doctors. “Fun. All right, have a meeting with them, get a list of all ongoing research projects that can't be dropped, see if you can keep them running. If not, we'll get in some temps, but I don't think there's much going on.” He'd shut down several projects himself as either useless, badly planned, or unethical. “With any time left, have them all work on comparisons of the most recent DNA and MRI tests I got from the Ares crews.” That'd keep them producing useful information until he re-populated the department.

“What are we gonna do?” Ravi asked anxiously.

Poor kid was a brilliant doctor, but he didn't get people and bureaucracy. Yet. Chris would bring him along. “Hire new people. We're NASA, Ravi, people will beat down our door. This is not a problem. This is, in fact, a slight annoyance that will become a positive.”

“But-”

“Look. A group leaving en masse like this? It's done to pressure management, that would be me, into giving in, doing what they want. In this case, approve their unethical behavior. If I did give in, beg them to come back, they'd be the ones running the department and we'd have chaos. Unfortunately for them I was already thinking of getting rid of half of them, and the other half walked out of their own free will, which is not my fault. It'll take us a few months to get back up to speed, but when we do, things will be greatly improved because we'll have ethical people who weren't hired according to their ability to suck up.”

“Okay.” Ravi still seemed a bit at sea, but he was thinking. “I'll get on the list and the comparisons. Director Sanders is going to hear about this any second now, what do I tell him?”

“To call me.”

There was a huff of relief on the phone. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. I'll call you if anything else happens.”

“All right. You're fine, Ravi.”

They hung up, and he went back out to tell Hannah and Mark the news. Mark was gone. “He had an appointment.” Hannah said airly.

Uh huh. “Well, be advised, most of the Ares lab scientists at NASA resigned this morning, so Teddy Sanders will be calling here any time now, frothing at the mouth.”

“Oh goodie.” Hannah said with no enthusiasm whatsoever. “How do you want me to handle it?”

“Put him on hold for about five minutes, then transfer the call to my cell.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I can do that. Have a fun day.”

“Oh yeah, it'll be great.”

\- 

“Thanks for seeing me.” Mark told Sutherland, shaking her hand.

“I'm your doctor.” She said dryly, and waved him to a chair. “What do you need?”

“Can you give me an unbiased opinion of these test results?” He handed her printouts of all the tests Chris ran on him in the first twenty-four hours back aboard the Hermes.

Sutherland raised an eyebrow at him, but took the papers and flipped through them, quickly, then went back through more slowly. On a third go-through, she stopped on the results of all the blood work, spread them out on the desk, and laid a finger over one figure. “Whose test results are these?”

“Mine.” Mark said.

Her eyes flicked up to his, held. “Straight off Mars?”

“Yeah. First twenty-four hours after.”

“I don't know why you're having me look at these when you have Beck.” She observed, mildly, and went over the blood test results more closely. “Did anyone explain these to you?”

“Not really. I was pretty out of it at the time.”

That got a snort. “I do not doubt. The red blood cell figures, the count and the hematocrit.” She shook her head.

Mark remembered the transfusions. “Yes?”

“You should at least have tissue death. According to current medical standards, you didn't have enough red blood cells to get oxygen to your body or brain.”

“Well, Chris flipped out and started a transfusion as soon as he saw them.”

“Probably the low gravity saved you.” Sutherland speculated. “The increased fluid in the upper body might have gotten a few more oxygen atoms to your brain. With numbers this low, that could have made the difference.”

Cool. He'd mention that to Chris, next time this came up.

“Can I ask,” Sutherland said, standing and pouring them both cups of coffee, returning, handing one to Mark, “why you're here, asking me about this? Beck's the expert, and the most brilliant doctor you'll ever have access to.”

“There's an investigation into Chris, allegations he behaved improperly with a patient. With me. On my way home from Mars.” Mark nodded at the test results. “I want to hand those over, as evidence I wasn't capable of behavior at all, of any ethical type.”

Sutherland looked quietly enraged. “According to the tests, you weren't even capable of breathing. An investigation. Probably accusations made by those half-wits over at NASA.”

“Probably.” Mark agreed.

“What bullshit.”

Mark blinked. He'd never heard her swear before, ever.

“Do you have the name of the investigator, their contact information?”

“I can get it for you.”

“Do. I want to have a chat with them, as the person SpaceX appointed to look over his shoulder and watch for improper behavior. I'll enjoy recounting the time he crawled into a hospital bed with you and still kept it professional.”

“Can I get a recording of the call? I want to hear that.”

She pressed her lips together, to avoid smiling. “No. But this will come to an end. Let them go investigate actual problems.”

“Excellent. I'm doing a deposition with them this week.”

“Between the two of us, we should have it cleared up by the new year.” They toasted each other with their coffee mugs.

–

On his way back to his office, Mark stopped in at the shrink's and damn it, the guy had a few minutes to talk. So he went into Doctor Scott's office and had a seat. “I'm here because Martinez made me promise to tell you some stuff.”

“Cool, manipulative friends. I love those.”

“Yesterday, we had a big family dinner, for Hanukkah. They were making latkes in the kitchen and the smell-” He trailed off. It was still the stupidest fucking trigger ever.

“Smell of raw potatoes got you?” Scott asked carefully.

Mark nodded.

“I'd been wondering about that.” At Mark's glare, Scott shrugged a little. “I've read everything we could get on your history, experiences. You've made a big joke out of how you won't eat potatoes, but if it were me, I wouldn't be able to handle it without puking. I wondered if they bothered you. Did you have a flashback?”

“No. Not really even an anxiety attack. Went out on the back porch in fresh air, stared at all the greenery. Martinez checked on me and I asked him to get my meds, so he did, and then made me promise to tell you and Chris.”

“Good friend.”

“Family, really.”

Scott smiled. “We can talk about this if you like, but when I blather about coping skills? This is exactly what I mean. You dealt with it. That's the goal. I like that you've got friends who notice and strong-arm you into talking about it, though.”

“Hooray.”

–

Chris was off and on the phone all morning, which he hated, keeping up on doings at NASA, coordinating so that the SpaceX lab could take over some shared projects to take up the slack, and then.

-Sanders is on line one. I'm transferring him through in three minutes unless you say otherwise.- Came through from Hannah.

“I've gotta take a call.” Chris told everyone, letting himself make a face. He ducked into the small office he'd set up in the medical lab, shut the door. The phone buzzed, and he heaved a deep breath, then answered. “Beck.”

“We've lost four published medical researchers this morning, along with several others.” Teddy snarled.

Interesting opening. “You're more than welcome to offer them jobs in your other labs. Don't complain to me when they stir up trouble, though.”

“Hire them back.”

“No. You're a director, Sanders, you know damn well if I crawl to them, the game's over. They resigned. They're gone.”

“Hire. Them. Back.”

“Would you?” Chris swore he could hear Teddy grinding his teeth over the phone, and let himself grin a little bit.

“So what do you think you're doing about this?”

“It's NASA, Teddy. I'll hire new people. You think I can't find them?” For crying out loud.

More grinding noises. “Some of these people only resigned because they were talked into it by the others.”

People who gave in to peer pressure and QUIT THEIR JOBS weren't exactly who he wanted in his lab. “If some of them ask to come back, I'll let them interview for jobs, like I'll be doing with all the others who'll apply. I'm not having an open door, and if they want it they can prove to me they are willing and able to do it.”

Teddy hung up on him.

That went well. Chris called NASA HR and asked if they had the jobs listed yet. They did, so he got on Twitter to stick a knife in all the people who'd quit and were waiting for him to call and beg them to come back to work.

Chris Beck @BeckAres3  
Want a job working with me at NASA? NASA.gov/jobs/AresLab

He imagined Helm's assistant – Chris KNEW she was behind this - smugly waiting by the phone, seeing her job listed on the NASA web site. Checkmate.

–

Mark had an alert set up for Chris' Twitter account, because Chris almost never used it, but when he did it was always AWESOME. He blinked at the tweet for a moment, then clicked over to the NASA web site and realized Chris had listed most of the jobs in his department as up for grabs and asked for applications.

He was still laughing when he re-tweeted it to his three hundred million followers. He took a second to feel sorry for the HR department, then started laughing again.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Yeah, I'm great. Quit calling me sir.”

“Of course, sir.”

–

After the tweet, Chris' phone went bugfuck. He was about to turn it off; the only reason he hadn't was in case Mark needed him for something. The tweet had apparently set off mayhem, even more than he'd expected. The head of HR called and made sad noises, so he had a couple boxes of donuts delivered. Teddy called and screamed; Chris hung up on him. Martinez and Johanssen both re-tweeted his job tweet and called to laugh their heads off. Mark re-tweeted it to his zillion followers and all hell broke loose.

It was late afternoon and he was looking forward to leaving work so he could turn his damn phone off, when it rang for the billionth time. “Beck,” he snarled into the phone.

“Christopher.”

“Oh, hi, Mom.” He ducked back into his office. “Sorry for the attitude, it's been a crazy day, wasn't watching caller ID any more.”

“Yes, I saw the tweet. What is going on down there?”

“My department decided to quit this morning to show me who's boss.”

“Ah.” In his mind he could see her nodding, the way she always did when she thought he was making Good Decisions. “Nice work. That should get you treated with more respect, indefinitely.”

“Well, it's NASA, it's not like we'll be unable to find someone willing to work there.”

She laughed. “I am actually calling to ask you what you're doing with the lovely man you're living with.”

“Sadly nothing at the moment, we're at work.”

“He sent me flowers.”

Chris blinked at that. “He did?”

“Yes. With a note, telling me Hanukkah was a success and giving me full credit for it, thanking me for all my help. He made a huge family meal for YOU, and he's sending ME flowers to thank me for it. What are you doing to keep him? You DO intend to hang on to him, don't you?”

Go, Mark. “I'm keeping him sedated a lot of the time, and when he tries to get away, I distract him with sex. So far it's working out really well.” Fine, he wasn't great at discussing his love life with his mother. What? He was a guy. Sue him.

Dead silence on the other end.

Hell. “Everything I can, all right? I love him, I've made sure he knows that. We're happy. Our lives have meshed together so perfectly it kind of scares me when I think about it.”

“You love him,” she repeated softly. “That's something I haven't heard you say before.”

“No. You haven't. This is pretty much it, for me.”

Long pause. “I'm so glad you found someone like him. That when you fell in love it would be with someone who would respect you, but not take you seriously. You need to laugh.”

“I know. I do. He's amazing. Snarked his way through a year and a half of trauma, is still at it. I've never known someone who could be that sarcastic, that rude, and still so kind.”

“Have you considered marriage?”

“Uh.” Brain, screeching halt.

“Men.” His mother sighed. “Even men raised by me. Honestly, Christopher, what else is the logical outcome? You're already living together. You said yourself your lives have combined, in your word, perfectly.” Her voice softened. “This is the happiest I've ever seen you, and I'm so glad it's with someone who is good to you. For you.”

“I'm not sure he wants anything formal or legal.” Chris said weakly.

“Really. Didn't he arrange a power of attorney for you to make medical decisions for him if he's unable? That sounds fairly formal and legal to me. As well as EXTREMELY trusting.” No one did sarcasm like his mother.

“Ah.”

“You're positively hopeless. Think about it, all right?”

“Ah.” He wasn't sure he'd think of anything else. “Uh. Okay.”

“I love you. I'm calling Mark now to thank him for the flowers.”

“I love you too. Could you maybe not mention this entire discussion?”

“For now.”

She hung up.

Ravi swept into their shared office, slowed, stopped. “Boss? Chris? You okay?”

“Call from my mother.”

He nodded, cautiously. “Bad news?”

“No, no. Just. Moms, you know? No matter how old you get, they'll break your brain.”

“I have felt that way more than once myself.”

“I want a margarita the size of my head.” Chris grumbled, pressing fingers to his temple.

“We've got coffee.”

“I'll take it.”

-

Mark was waiting in their office when Chris wandered back in after a full day. “How are you doing?” He looked tired.

“Phone's been ringing off the hook, press has gotten wind of it. Hannah get going all right?”

“Yeah, I ordered her a car and driver from the motor pool, put her into it myself, with her suitcases. She texted me a few minutes ago, she landed at LAX. She says happy holiday.”

Chris smiled. “Let's go home.”

“Hell yes. I called the Gringo, we're picking up takeout on the way. This day requires greasy hamburgers.”

“Mom called to tell me about the flowers you sent her. Good work.”

Mark chuckled. “I will deny it if you ever tell anyone, but her directions and recipes are better than my mother's. I could have made that dinner in my sleep.”

“Well, you're still her favorite. She's after me to keep you.” He waited to see what reaction that got.

It got a grin. “Ooh, I'm a kept man. Awesome.”

They'd gotten to the parking lot, Chris' phone chirping or beeping every few seconds as messages continued to come in. “I'm turning it off when we get home. I've already informed anyone we care about to call me on the land line at the condo tonight if they need us.”

“That's fine. I'll drive, you go through your messages.”

“Thanks.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Christmas eve.” Chris observed over coffee the next morning. They'd arrived back on Earth on Christmas eve, two years previously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We wound up not making my posting goal, someone remind me to never try this during the holidays again. But I'm still finishing up and it won't be too long. Have Christmas Eve on New Year's Eve, and a good new year to us all.

When Mark got out of the Gringo, Chris was sitting in the passenger seat, eyes wide. “Holy shit.”

“What? What's wrong?” Jesus H, what now?

“Not wrong. Holy shit. Do you remember Henry Durand?” He'd done a lot of their final Ares exams personally, working with Chris. He'd also checked Mark out when he got back; he was another flight surgeon, a good one.

“Head of the main Human Health department, right?”

“He applied for transfer to the Ares lab. He says it happened on his watch and he wants to help clean it up. As one of my subordinates.”

“Holy shit.” Mark absorbed the information for a moment. “Well, NASA does like to hire and promote from inside, right? Plus he's a good doctor.” One of the best NASA had. Mark really wanted him for the Ares crews as well as support for Chris.

Giving up a leadership position to work in another lab was unusual, especially at NASA. Giving up running an entire department to work in one of the specialty labs within the department had never been done before that Mark ever heard of. The guy would literally give up all his authority. 

“He sent me his resume.” Chris said faintly, scrolling through it. “Jesus. He's my dad's age, was my hero when I was in the Air Force, and at NASA. Got degrees in, wow, everything. He sent me his damn resume like he's applying to work for me.”

He was. “You could make him co-director or something, if you think you can work in partnership with him. You're going to be busy with a lot of stuff besides that lab.” And he was one of the few people at NASA who Mark believed would respect how Chris wanted to run his lab.

“Yeah.” Chris said. “Yeah, that's a good idea.” He stared out the window a while. “Holy shit.” He said again, under his breath.

If Durand came on in the lab, he immediately gave legitimacy to the way Chris was running it; having most of the staff resign and letting them go cheerfully wasn't exactly done, and he didn't have plans on getting more conventional in the future.

Mark grinned. Holy shit.

–

After they ate, Mark went and got Chris' last, biggest Hanukkah present. It was the one he was most nervous about; it looked perfect to him, but what did he know? He was so far out of his comfort zone with all this classy stuff; his idea of a great gift was baseball tickets. Chris was still at the table, holding a drink and staring out the window. “You okay?” he asked. Chris had seemed a little out of it all evening, but he'd had a hell of a day.

Chris shook off his mood. “Yeah. What's that?”

“Last Hanukkah present.”

“Oh geez, Mark.”

“Well, don't thank me yet, I went out on a limb with this one, so if you don't like it, or it's wrong, say the word and we'll make it go away.”

“You look nervous.” Chris said suspiciously.

“I kind of am.”

Chris stood and took the large, flat package, leaned it against the chairs, started pulling paper off. “The rest of the gifts have been great, I'm sure whatever this- Oh my god. Mark. Where-?”

“Johanssen gets credit for this one.” Mark stood in front of the two by four foot canvas, still getting the chills he'd felt the first time he'd seen it. “She dug up your helmet cam pictures, some other video she had laying around who knows where, tracked down the artist, everything. I came up with the idea and paid for it.”

It was Chris' EVA. The one he'd described, that he'd said was as much a spiritual experience as anything he'd ever had. The sun was straight ahead, taking up most of the canvas, and the artist had captured the real variability of it, with flares and spots and all the rest. Mars was off at about ten o'clock, and Mercury was on the right, actual surface definition visible. The spine of the Hermes stretched out from the bottom of the picture, and one of Chris' boots and his tether were visible in the lower left.

The artist had demanded the entire story, then more resources, and produced this.

“It's perfect.” Chris told him, hushed. “Whoever painted it, they really nailed it. I'll have to send them a message. It's amazing.” He turned. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

Chris pulled him in by his sweatshirt and kissed him deeply. “No, THANK you. All the gifts have been perfect, but this is extra perfect. I love you.”

Mark leaned in, wrapped his arms around Chris' waist, staring at the picture. He was in love with a guy who'd seen that, done that, and reacted with awe and joy instead of agoraphobia and screaming terror. “I love you too.”

–

“Christmas eve.” Chris observed over coffee the next morning. They'd arrived back on Earth on Christmas eve, two years previously.

“Yep.” Mark hunched a little. “Don't know if this is going to be a bad day for me or not. CNN is playing that fucking documentary tonight, followed by the interview from a couple weeks ago. I don't want to watch any of it. I want to come home, eat in bed, have sex until we can't move, and go to sleep.”

“It's a date. I want to spend the day with you.”

“I would love that, but we have work. Tomorrow, all day, bed.”

“Martinez' tomorrow.”

“Damn. Day after.”

“I'll look forward to it. But why can't we hang out together today? I've only got one or two things on my list to do, besides Christmas parties at NASA and SpaceX. Gotta show face at both.”

“I suspect your in-box is going to take the entire day to dig through, but yeah, I want to stop in at my departments and that's about it.”

Chris leaned over, and Mark met him halfway, kissed him.

–

“Ishi took a couple days to see his family, but I'd be happy to help you with anything, Doctor Beck, Doctor Watney.” The kid was nervous as hell, and Chris hoped no one was up to anything. The department was about half staffed, people goofing off, not coming in, or on actual vacation like Ishi.

“I've gotta check on some stuff. Show Doctor Beck the slugs, please, introduce him to Fred. Beck's a microbiologist, Fred should be his bestie.”

“All right.” The young woman smiled. “We've got some oats if you want to feed him.”

“Fred likes oats, does he?” Chris asked, following the kid through racks and tables and test tubes (?) and hanging walls of plants. She was wearing a long, flowing dress and a hijab and didn't brush into anything. He got snagged on a dozen different things. “You've got an amazing diversity of plants here.”

“Everyone seems to have slightly different interests, so it works out well. Unfortunately our head lab tech is out for the day, she's got a collection of carnivorous plants you'd enjoy.”

“I've heard. I'll have to come back, they sound interesting.” Especially the ones Mark thought were endangered and therefore illegal to be growing in a lab that was supposed to be researching environmental uses for plants in space.

“Here they are.” She waved a hand. There were two tanks on either end of a sturdy lab bench. One was full of water and what looked like a bunch of leaves swirling around; the other looked like a forest floor. “Fred's probably in his hollow log, I don't think he likes the noise of all of us coming in, in the mornings. Would you like to feed him?”

“You go ahead.” He'd like to get acquainted with the critter before he stuck a hand into its habitat.

She pulled out a box of – haha, Quaker Oats, popped the lid, and put a small pile of them a few inches in front of the log. “He's shy, it'll take him a few minutes.” She explained easily, and gestured to the other tank. “I'd offer to let you feed the sluggos, but they won't need any more food for another couple months.”

“The sluggos?”

She ducked her head. “It's what I call them. They're kind of cute, and they act like a flock of birds, as a group.”

He watched them a while. “Yeah, I see what you mean. It's amazing how much they look like leaves.”

“I know! At first I told myself it was the green color, but it's the shape and the veins, too.”

“You're in charge of taking care of them?”

“I sort of stole the job from two other people. I'm a biochemist with a side of microbiology, as well as the botany thing. So the chloroplasts really fascinate me.” She lowered her voice. “I'm afraid I'm the one leading the group trying to figure out the sluggos. It's driving Doctor Watney a little bonkers, but I'm THIS CLOSE to figuring out the kleptoplasty.”

Mark had ranted something about lab rats photosynthesizing one night, so Chris sort of nodded and made wise noises.

“Think if we could produce animal products as well as plant, with photosynthesis.” The kid said dreamily. “It'd end world hunger.”

There were a hell of a lot of idealists around here. “You might have a little way to go on that.” He said as gently as possible.

Thankfully, she giggled. “I know. Look, Fred's out. He's so cute.”

Chris turned, and there was... a lump of yellow-brown slime wrapped around the pile of rolled oats. Yep, that was a slime mold. He blinked in shock when the woman slid the top of the tank aside, reached in, and laid a careful finger on it. “Morning, Fred.” she crooned into the tank, and goddamn if the slime mold didn't lift up a little bit around her finger, then go back to eating/absorbing its breakfast.

“Did you get a hug from a slime mold?” Chris asked.

She smiled a little. “I think so. They can learn, did you know?”

Chris had heard rantings about that, too. There was a sound in the door, and Mark was leaning against the jamb, shaking his head. “Ready to go? Seen Fred?” he asked.

“Yeah.” He turned, held out a hand. “It was nice to meet you, Doctor-?”

“It's Doctor Allam, but call me Jenny. Everyone does.” Her hand was narrow, and strong. And had recently been hugged by a slime mold.

“Have a nice holiday.” Chris told her.

She laughed. “Don't worry, Doctor Watney has threatened all of us about what he'll do if we don't take the time off. We're only allowed to come in to feed and water. I'm in charge of keeping the lab running since Christmas isn't really my thing. I got time off for Ramadan, he was very kind, but he's making me take time off now anyway.”

“He's such a downer.” Chris said.

The sound of her laughter followed them down the hall. “She's got three doctorates. She's twenty-two.” Mark said under his breath. “I thought she was an intern until last week and she never bothered to correct me because I was being so polite and respectful -her words - she didn't want to correct me and hurt my feelings. Since she started hanging out with Fred, she started a doctorate on protozoology. It's almost done.”

“Intimidated?”

“Hell yes.”

“You have the smartest people working for you. That's more important than being smartest.”

“So you say. I'll remind you when we're fighting off a giant green lab rat.”

“You know they're not really breeding the Incredible Hulk.”

“I know. The Hulk doesn't photosynthesize.”

–

Enviro was next, and while Mark signed off on some purchases and wrote up plans for Thursday and Friday, several of the engineers politely asked Chris to look over some drawings.

“You do know I've never been formally trained to read these, right?” Chris asked, staring at the large whiteboard. “My training in engineering consists of a mission to Mars gone horribly wrong. So there was definitely room for education, but let's say what and how I learned wasn't exactly conventional.”

“We'll be happy to answer any questions you have, Doctor Beck, but any insights you've got would be appreciated.”

“He impressed them last Friday, huh?” Mark asked Jones.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah. I could have said the same thing, but the doc has higher education. And he's male. And white.” She caught herself and winced a little. “I mean, nothing against Doctor Beck at all, but-”

“I understand exactly what you mean.” Mark patted her shoulder. “Patience, grasshopper, after the new year when things settle down, there are going to be some major changes. One of them is putting you in charge of trouble-shooting.”

Her jaw dropped. “For real?”

“Shit yeah. You've fixed more systems than they've even studied. I'll be working out details yet, but yeah, they need to start paying attention.”

“You are the BEST.” She announced, and hugged him.

Mark may have made a really dignified squeaking noise.

“Oh. Sorry.” She let go immediately and stood almost at attention “Sorry, sir, that was inappropriate.”

“PLEASE don't call me sir.” Mark begged. “The whole damn Botany department's doing it. It's Mark.” He paused. There'd been some stuff he'd been waiting on, but... “Come into my office a sec.”

She looked nervous. “All right.”

“As part of the reorganization, I'm going to need an assistant here to keep me up to speed; I've got a lot of other stuff going. I was wondering if you wanted to be the assistant.”

“Seriously?”

“Your service record is impressive as hell. I especially liked the bit with the sharks.”

Jones hooted with laughter. “The divers didn't.” She paused. “You want me? Are you sure?”

“You know what kept me alive on Mars was a bunch of mechanical skills. The botany, sure, but I was taking stuff apart and fixing it almost every day. Stuff like the water reclaimer, not minor things. Everyone likes to blame my degree for it, but I worked in a garage fixing cars every summer as a kid. It was at least as useful as anything I learned in a classroom. You've got a lot of knowledge, the practical kind. That's exactly what we need around here. Let them crank out math to figure out exactly what pipe diameter they need for something; you'll be the one pointing out it needs to be INSIDE the hull.”

“Oh god.” She pressed her hands to her mouth. “Yeah, I'd love it. I'll be the best damn assistant you ever had.”

“I'm sure you will be. More, we'll school all the doctorates out there that they need to get their hands dirty to learn this stuff. Another change is, they're going to be building their own projects from now on.”

“Okay, I gotta hug you again. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks for the chance, Doctor Watney.”

“Mark. You earned it.”

“Oh damn. Mark. I gotta warn you, my mother's probably gonna make you dinner once she finds out about this.”

“If she does, I'm bringing her flowers and I won't negotiate on it.” They laughed together. “Keep this to yourself for now. Well, yourself and your mom, moms need to know this stuff or they'll kick our asses, right? But the Monday after the new year, we're going to have a big meeting and announce this and a bunch of other stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Let's go rescue Chris from the engineers.”

Out in the main workspace, Chris was saying “Yeah, no... see this? There's no way in hell someone in an EVA suit could get through this hatch to do any repairs. Why don't you put the hatch on the inner hull, you could fix it in your shirt sleeves.”

Silence.

Chris' eyes flicked over to where Mark and Jones were. “Jones, why aren't you schooling these guys on how submarines work? This is double-hull stuff like the Navy's done for a hundred-odd years. You could do it in your sleep. Even I know that.”

Jones smiled at him brightly. “They won't listen to me.”

“Why not?” Chris asked all the engineers.

More silence.

“You've got a fantastic resource here who knows infinitely more than I do. Go to her, for crying out loud.” He turned to Mark. “Done?”

“Yeah.” He turned to the department. “We'll see you all after the holiday, have a good one.”

Everyone called out their own good wishes as they ducked out the door.

“What'd you tell Jones? She looked ready to give you a kidney if you asked.”

Mark grinned. “Probably. Told her about her upcoming promotion, asked her to keep it quiet. She hugged me. Twice.”

“You are such a hardass boss.”

“The rest of 'em will think so when I tell them she's not building their stuff any more.”

“They could use some suffering. They're making mistakes I can find. A lot of them.”

“I thought so, too.”

–

They stopped in at the SpaceX holiday party long enough for Mark to eat a plate of bread pudding and shake hands and say 'happy holidays' as needed, then went over to NASA.

NASA's party was being held in one of the giant 'observation rooms' they kept for the media. “Hoo boy.” The jumbo wall screens were running a 'greatest hits of NASA space exploration' and at least the sound wasn't on. A few of Ares' Three's finer moments would probably go across that screen before the day was over. Mark hoped he wasn't around when they did.

“You gonna be okay with this?” Chris asked under his breath.

“Sound's off. I can keep my back to it.”

Chris winced. “Take a pill.”

“Already did.”

“Take another pill.”

Mark grinned and nodded, and that was when the crowd noticed them, noticed HIM, and set up a roar. “Fuck.” He said under his breath, and held up his hands for silence. Weirdly, he got it. “Thanks for the welcome. I, uh, still don't do real well with crowds of people, so while I'm happy to talk to all of you, try not to swarm me, okay?” That got smiles and nods and polite applause, what the fuck. So okay.

“I'm proud of you.” Chris said softly as they went for drinks.

“For what?”

“Announcing you have a problem and asking for cooperation.”

“Well, it's more humiliating to have an anxiety attack in front of everyone.”

“Whatever works.”

Martinez bounced up while Mark was washing down a handful of anxiety meds. “Hi, guys!” He hugged each of them. “Telemetry did mac and cheese this year. Get some while you can. Where’s Hannah? Why didn’t you bring her?”

“She’s visiting family out of town.” 

Every year Telemetry had a contest over who could cook the best food. The foods varied; the fights and arguments and bragging went on forever. Each dish had a number, you could vote for whichever you liked best. Over the years there had been ridiculous amounts of cheating, so each person getting food got a single ballot to vote with. Mark stared down at his. “Water marks? Seriously? You're doing water marks on the ballots now?”

“Smith stuffed the ballot box last year.” The person guarding the table explained.

“Some things never change.” Mark shook his head. Everyone around him smiled happily.

He went off to a quiet table to eat, and people stopped by to say hello. First was Mitch.

“Glad to see you, Watney, you look good. Happy.”

“Am.” Mark waved to a chair and Mitch sat down with a smile. “Did you spike the punch this year?”

“Absolutely.” Mitch smiled and took a sip of his. “How's SpaceX?”

“My botany department is like ten of me. I think I'm being paid back for something I did in a previous life. Been asking Lewis for leadership tips and she laughs at me.”

Mitch threw his head back and laughed until he couldn't breathe and people were staring.

Chris swung by then to introduce his new assistant, and then Johanssen turned up asking where Hannah was, and it was almost like old times.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So. Sex until we can't move. I had some... thoughts.”
> 
> He watched with interest as Chris closed his eyes and shivered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, y'all. The holidays were unexpectedly horrible, so I still have a few chapters to write. I hope to have the entire story done by the end of January at the latest. 
> 
> Until then, in the interests of starting the year in the method I intend to go forward, have a chapter of smut to tide you over.
> 
> Also good news, I guess, there's at least another five chapters.

Following Mark's morning plan, they picked up a light meal at The Gringo on the way home, and ate it in bed. They were almost finished, and Mark decided it was time to talk a bit. “So. Sex until we can't move. I had some... thoughts.”

He watched with interest as Chris closed his eyes and shivered.

“Really?” He had to ask.

“Mm, really.” Chris nodded. “Absolutely.”

Mark grinned. Seemed he really WAS figuring out the sex thing. “Right. Uh. When things get really intense, I can't tell if the noises you make are pain or pleasure.”

“Assume pleasure unless I tell you otherwise.”

That would normally work, but for what he wanted tonight, “and if I ask you what color?”

“Green.” Chris said instantly. “Yellow, stop and stay in place, be ready to adjust the plan, maybe discussion. Red, let me go and back off completely. I promise I'll yell as needed, but I'm sure it'll be incoherent screaming or begging.”

Mark shut his own eyes for a second. “That works. Also, physically, if you start pushing me or pull away, I'll back off so don't be surprised if that happens.”

Chris nodded. “Works.”

Mark watched Chris pick at his salad for a moment. “Look at me for a sec.”

Chris raised his eyes, and his pupils were already dilated.

“You don't mind when I take charge.”

“Love it. I also like how we vary things, if I took charge you'd roll with it, but yes, you taking over and making demands is definitely my thing. It's not about being bossed around or dominance, it's that you know what you want and are asking for it.” He hesitated. “You tell me that your kink is making me lose it, go to pieces, lose all the reserve, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, mine is you going after what you want, and me giving it to you. Especially when you talk me through it. It's something I want to do anyway, and you're telling me it's exactly what you want and I'm perfect and.” he frowned down at his food and cleared his throat. “Yeah. Does it for me.”

Mark blew out a breath. “Go us, being well matched. You know I'll get more... intense... if you encourage me, right? I'll keep at it until you tell me I've gone far enough.” Or too far, which he'd really like to avoid.

Chris shivered again and nodded.

“I had someone dump me for it.” Mark finally admitted. He remembered her yelling about how his approach in bed reflected his poor attitude toward women in general, something about how he wanted to control her. Maybe he should call her up, tell her hey, he was now having sex with a guy and was, if anything, more demanding than he'd been with her. Ha. That would be a fun way to get a restraining order against him.

“I won't.” Chris put his food aside, laid back against the headboard. “You're really responsive. To me, I mean. You ask me if I'm enjoying things, adjust to my reactions. It's very clear that me enjoying it is a big factor in YOU enjoying it. I know I'm safe, that you won't do anything I don't like, so I'm willing to try just about anything you want, see if I do like it.”

“Just about.” Mark repeated. Yes. Hard limits would be good.

Chris smiled. “It's all stuff you wouldn't do anyway. No deliberate damage – grabbing me a little too tight is one thing, but deliberately hurting me is an absolute no.”

“Of course, baby.” Mark lifted one hand and kissed it.

Chris squeezed his hand gently. “No groups. Nothing much in public, how we've been is fine. No animals. Bondage was always a no, but with you I'll try it, so long as we negotiate it first. I'm a doctor, there are going to be a lot of rules if you want to tie me up. Circulation, nerves, all that. I will micro-manage any bondage.”

Mark had to repeat “No animals.”

There was a little smirk at that. “I knew some wild and crazy people back in the day, people you had to lay out those kinds of limits with.”

“But you trust me to tie you up.”

“Don't spring it on me, but yeah, I would. Warning, I'll tie you up later if you do it to me. I'm kind of intrigued now.”

Mark might have shivered at that, himself. “Fair. I guess my hard limits are about the same. The blow job thing isn't a solid no, only...”

“If you don't like them, it's fine, Mark.” Chris leaned in to kiss him, then started gathering up what was left of their meal. “It's not as if there's nothing else to do. Though I've been meaning to ask, do you dislike receiving as well as giving?”

“No... receiving is fine,” in fact Chris gave the most spectacular blow jobs, “but it doesn't seem fair if I'm not going to reciprocate.”

That got him a head shake. “Stay there, we're talking about that one.”

Mark slouched down in the bed, got comfortable while Chris got rid of their meal. They probably should have had this discussion sooner, but they knew each other so well, figuring stuff out as they went had been working well enough.

No animals. Jesus Christ.

“All right. This reciprocation thing. If we're keeping score, I owe you at least five orgasms.” Chris announced, returning.

“What?” Mark asked blankly.

“Times you don't feel well enough to have sex, but still get me off. You DO remember me jerking off on your lap?”

“That was amazing.” Mark agreed. “Need to remember that one.”

“I never thought I could come that hard with my own hand.” Chris said thoughtfully. “So do I owe you orgasms?”

“No?” Mark answered, thinking as he went. “I want to see you feel good, and even if I feel like crap, I can do that for you.”

“No kidding, I can't believe you turned me into a puddle like that.”

“That was a good night.” Mark agreed.

“And if you'd felt better, after we did that, and I gave you a blowie, would you feel like things were 'even'?”

“You're trying to show me how dumb I'm being.”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“All right, but promise you'll say something if you feel like things are one-sided.”

“You rendered me incoherent while barely touching me. You regularly make love to me when you feel too bad for sex, to make me feel good. If things are one-sided, it's in my favor.”

Mark let himself smile. “Okay, I get your point.”

“Now.” Chris said. “We can talk about this all night, but I propose we put on a movie or something and digest before we get to whatever amazing sex you have planned.”

“A Christmas movie?” Mark asked.

“Die Hard?”

“Good choice.”

–

After, they turned off the screen and when Chris reached for the lights, Mark said “Leave 'em. Want to watch you.” He got up, made sure all the windows were closed (ha), arranged things how he wanted them. “I've been thinking on this for a while. Or, rather, a couple things.”

“Should I lay here for now, moan when you say stuff like that?”

Mark sat on the side of the bed, leaned in and kissed Chris, long and sloppy. “Strip.” He was watching, and yeah, Chris' pulse got visible and his eyes got dark. Chris leaned up and kissed him, then got off the bed and took his clothes off, tossing them on a chair.

“Hands and knees on the bed, please. Elbows and knees, whatever works.”

Chris did it.

“This is hot already.” Mark had to admit. Chris laughed and Mark leaned in and kissed his way from Chris' shoulder down his side to his hip.

Mark sat there for a while, running his hand through Chris' hair, down his back. Over his ass and down his thighs. Traced the lines of his biceps and triceps, the muscles of his back and legs. “So pretty. Are you cold?” He was covered in gooseflesh.

Chris shook his head.

Mark got out the lube, slid a finger slowly into Chris, enjoyed the sigh and twitch he got. “That's it. Remember the time I asked you if you could come on my fingers?”

Chris shivered and rocked back. “Mark.”

“Right here, baby.” The next time Chris rocked forward and back, Mark let his finger trace lightly over his prostate. The next rock forward, Mark withdrew his finger, and Chris gave a sad little whimper. “Shh, getting more lube. Don't want you to get sore, we've got all kinds of things to do tonight.” He carefully put three fingers together and pressed them against Chris. “All right. Slowly, don't hurt yourself.”

Chris took about an inch before he stopped and gasped. “What?”

“You like the stretch, right?” Mark didn't move his hand. He was letting Chris set the pace.

“Oh my god.” Chris said, rocking forward, then pressing back very carefully.

Mark sat and watched in fascination as Chris worked himself back onto his fingers, rocking and twisting. He was surprisingly close to orgasm already; this must really do it for him. “I was thinking about blindfolding you.” He admitted. Chris groaned and pressed back again. Mark stroked his prostate and enjoyed the squeal. “Should I do that? Cover your eyes?”

“Don't stop. Please.”

“Maybe next time. Make you wonder what I'll do next.” Mark said thoughtfully. That got a full-body clench that was almost an orgasm. Mark opened his fingers when the muscles tightened up, and Chris made a low sound in his throat. He opened his fingers again as Chris rocked forward, and the noises were beautiful.

Chris was trembling and saying variations on 'please' and Mark's name.

Mark pulled his hand away, to a wail, and added more lube. Pressed four fingers against Chris. “Slowly, baby.” He pushed back, felt the increase, and leaned forward. “Come on. Let go. Let me see you.” More working himself backward carefully, shaking all over. He was starting to get frantic, and that wasn't what Mark was looking for. At all. “Do you want some help?”

Chris nodded.

Mark held his other hand so that Chris' dick would rub across it as he moved. Chris came almost immediately, shaking and shouting, and Mark gently pushed his fingers in as far as they'd comfortably go, smiling at the noises.

When Chris was incoherent, gasping into the bed and shaking, Mark withdrew, cleaned them both up, pulled his own clothes off. He rolled Chris to his back, put a pillow under his hips, lubed himself up. Waited until Chris could focus on his face. “I've been thinking, the aftershocks you have would be really interesting to feel from the inside.” Then he pushed into Chris, slowly but without pausing until he was all the way in.

Chris bowed his back, shouted, and collapsed back onto the bed again.

Everything clenched around Mark's dick exactly how he'd expected, and he shut his eyes and breathed for a moment. “Color?” He opened his eyes.

Chris was sprawled under him, shivering, heaving in air. As he watched, an aftershock hit. Chris groaned and shook, and Mark himself had to moan at the feel of Chris under him, around him, twisting and shivering. “Christopher. Color.”

He opened his eyes slowly, blinked. “Green. Mark. This is-” Mark slid out, back in, and Chris's eyes rolled back in his head. “MARK.”

Mark leaned down and kissed him. “Right here, baby.” The next thrust got another twisting, tight, shivering reaction. Oh yeah. “You are so fucking gorgeous right now.” Still keeping himself in control, he thrust a few more times, as Chris was increasingly loud and incoherent under him. “Color.”

“Green.”

“I'm going to cut loose, can you take that?”

“I've never-” The idea of it made Chris shake. “Please. Yes. Mark.”

All right. Mark put one arm under Chris' hips to keep him relatively still, put his other arm up at Chris' shoulder to hold himself up, laid his head forward on Chris' chest. Started thrusting. It was amazing, wild and loud and Chris' hands were twisted in his hair, then clutching his shoulders, kneading his ass. Someone was begging. He changed his angle a little bit and Chris raked his nails up his back and he shouted Chris' name into his chest, lost.

–

When Mark pulled out of him, he wheezed a little. The feel of Mark moving against all those sensitized nerves was intense as hell. He was aware of Mark there, cleaning him up – again – and talking. Saying something. Then fingers slid into him and he knew he made noise because it was almost painful. He slitted his eyes and Mark was there with that evil grin on his face. “What?”

“You're hard again. One more time, baby.” Then his hand closed over his dick. Mark's fingers were inside him, pressing on his prostate from inside and out, moving gently, and his hand was working his dick, oh god.

“Ngh. Can't.” He gasped out, grabbed the headboard to try and anchor himself. He thought he might be crying and knew he couldn't catch his breath.

“Sure you can. Lay there and feel, all you have to do is take it. Color?”

He actually thought about that. He wasn't being hurt and he wasn't emotionally uncomfortable. He was being pushed to his limits. By Mark. “Green.” He shouted it up into the room as an aftershock hit and Mark worked him through it.

“That's it, baby.” Mark leaned forward to kiss him and Chris clung to his shoulders, overwhelmed and wrung out. His body tightened and Mark's fingers pushed back against it and he almost came. “There you are. Beautiful. A couple more of those. Think about how it felt when you jerked off in my lap.” Another breathless clench and Mark's fingers there, this time rubbing over all those nerves.

“Please. This is- please, Mark.” Nothing had ever been this intense before. He'd be terrified, but Mark had him.

“Not going anywhere.”

Chris felt him push another finger in – how many? Three? Four? The feel of his body opening to take it overwhelmed him and he tightened and Mark twisted his hand and he went under, screaming with pleasure and a little pain and his body out of control and Mark.

–

Mark leaned forward and kissed Chris on the forehead. There was no response. He smiled a little; Chris was a mess of lube and spunk and sweat, completely wrecked. He got a wet washcloth before Chris was aware enough to miss him and cleaned him up, talking softly. “You were so beautiful. I hope that last round wasn't too much for you, because I want to do that again some time.” He threw the cloth into the bathroom, got into bed, pulled the blankets up. Chris rolled into him – good, starting to be aware – and Mark rubbed his back, kissed his forehead again. “You in there?”

Chris made an affirmative sort of noise.

“Love you. Do you need anything?”

Chris shook his head, burrowed his face into Mark's neck.

“All right, sleep then?”

Chris didn't respond, so Mark got the lights turned off and curled up around him, dozed off.

–

Mark was finishing up a shower the next morning when Chris staggered in, got under the spray, shut his eyes, and stood there. “Morning, sunshine.” Mark tried. Chris made a noise low in his throat and otherwise didn't move, so Mark took pity and started washing his hair for him. “How are you doing?”

“Fuck.” Chris mumbled, with his eyes still shut. “I'm officially giving up the title of sex ninja. It's yours now. Space pirate and sex ninja. Congratulations.”

He laughed. “You're okay?”

“I think I sprained my dick. I have no complaints. Totally worth it.”

Mark finished rinsing Chris' hair. “Want a back rub, or something?” He grinned. “An aspirin? Morphine?”

“I would sell Martinez's soul for a cup of coffee.”

That was easy enough, they'd set the machine the night before. “Sure. Stay here, I'll get it.”

He pulled on a bathrobe, dripped water through the condo, and poured a cup of coffee. Thought about it. Poured another one. He took them back into the bathroom, and-

Chris was leaned face-first against the wall, half asleep.

“Come on, baby, we've got stuff to do today.” Mark got back in, handed Chris his mug, took a swig out of his own. “We should drink coffee in the shower more often. This is pretty good.” He lightly pushed Chris under the spray, and started scrubbing him down. “Seriously, though, are you all right?”

“Yeah. Really fucked out.” Chris drank some coffee, cleared his throat. “What happened after I came the second time?”

Interesting. “I cleaned you up, cuddled you, and we went to sleep.”

“No marathon running, didn't climb any walls, nothing like that. I feel like I ran at least two marathons. And set a new weight-lifting world record. With my dick.”

Mark grinned to himself a little. “Do you want to? I know you like morning runs.”

“Shut up.”

Mark kissed him. “Love you.”

“I love you too, you kinky bastard.” Chris opened his eyes to smile at Mark, then frowned a little. “Damn. Did I do that?” He ran a finger along a series of tooth marks and love bites running down Mark's left bicep.

“Yeah, during round two. It was pretty hot. You made accompanying noises.”

Chris turned the slightest bit pink. “Did I break the skin?”

“Don't think so. Tiny bit sore, like a bruise, but it's no big deal. I get why you liked the bruises on your wrists now.”

Chris collapsed back against the shower wall, drank more coffee, shut his eyes again. “You should show Martinez. He saw my wrists and was all worried. We could let him know it goes both ways.”

Mark couldn't stop laughing. “I might.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The internet has given you the ship name of Beckney and they've been going back through old interviews for possible cuteness and generally screaming. Tumblr's been communicating in keyboard mashes for about twelve hours now.” Johanssen grinned evilly. “Play this right, we can crash Twitter. That's been on my bucket list for YEARS.”
> 
> “You could hack them in ten minutes.” Chris pointed out.
> 
> “Crash it without cheating.” Johanssen amended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The crappy holiday has overflowed into a crappy year, but I'm still plugging away. Still hoping for the end of January wrap-up.

“Beckney!” Martinez called from his porch when Mark and Chris arrived.

Mark looked at Chris, who was looking back at him. “What?”

Johanssen came up the walk behind them. “Congratulations. You're a hashtag. Been trending on Twitter since that interview aired last night. You should never have called Beck 'Pookie'.”

Chris groaned and pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead.

Mark laughed his ass off. “That's what you get for not asking to join the interview, Pookie.”

They all carried bags and stacks and piles of stuff into Martinez' house, started putting presents under the tree. Mark went through to drop off things in the kitchen. Marissa followed him back out to the living room. For now, it was them and David, Martinez and Marissa's son.

“Now, what about the interview?” Mark asked.

“You and Beck together were cute.” Martinez was grinning.

“You were adorable.” Marissa confirmed. “The Pookie thing was especially funny for me because I know you don't actually call him that as a pet name. Anyone with eyes could tell you were irritated that Chris was talking about your personal life, but you were still leaned into him on the couch and the smile you gave him when you threatened to throw him out a window said 'true love' to anyone who knows you.”

Fucking hell.

“The internet has given you the ship name of Beckney and they've been going back through old interviews for possible cuteness and generally screaming. Tumblr's been communicating in keyboard mashes for about twelve hours now.” Johanssen grinned evilly. “Play this right, we can crash Twitter. That's been on my bucket list for YEARS.”

“You could hack them in ten minutes.” Chris pointed out.

“Crash it without cheating.” Johanssen amended.

“We're a couple.” Mark told Chris. “Congratulations. You wanted it to be obvious.”

“Couple of what?” Chris snarked back. They sat down with drinks, and Chris turned back to Johanssen. “Thanks for the magic with my in-box.”

She looked confused. “What magic?”

“You're not the one sorting through my e-mail? Someone's been putting applications in one folder, tracking followups, all kinds of-”

“Hannah.” Mark snarled.

“She's supposed to be on vacation.” Chris reminded him.

“Like that would stop her?” Mark pulled out his phone, dialed.

Hannah answered on the first ring, like she'd been holding the phone in her hand. On Christmas goddamn morning. “Mark? Is there a problem?”

“Yes.” Mark flopped back into the couch next to Chris. “I have a personal assistant who doesn't know how to take a week off.”

She snorted. “Oh, come on. The job applications have been insane since you both tweeted the listings. It's only a few minutes here and there-”

“You're on vacation, kid! We got to Mars and back without your help, we can handle three more business days without you sorting our mail.”

“Getting to Mars isn't the same as running an office. You may be fine on another planet but you need me-” There was some muffled noise and Hannah said “Wait, no-” and then a new voice came on the line. “Who is this?” a woman asked.

“Mark Watney, ma'am. And you?”

“Hannah's mother.” The woman disapproved of him greatly, Mark could tell. And he knew why.

“Great. It's nice to meet you. I was just telling Hannah, she's supposed to be on vacation and to quit doing her job by remote. Can you confiscate her computer and make her eat some cake? Maybe take a nap? Hang with some friends, I don't know, do something that isn't hunched over a computer for me?”

Long pause, then a chuckle. “All right, maybe I don't think you're a terrible boss.”

“I'm trying not to be. I called to tell her to take the rest of her vacation off.”

“Now that I know there won't be consequences from you, I'll make sure of it.”

“Excellent. Have a nice holiday, and tell Hannah I hope she does too.”

“We will, thank you. The same to you and Doctor Beck.”

Mark heard Hannah yelp “HEY!” in the background, right before the phone went dead.

“Hannah's mom is dealing with it.” Mark told the rest of the room.

Martinez winced. “Oh man, your coffee will not be safe to drink.”

But his damn PA, one of the kindest people he'd met recently, would have a couple days off.

–

Mark won David's devotion for getting him the coolest gift – a giant Lego kit of the Hermes for him to put together with his dad.

“Do they even MAKE these?” Martinez asked, turning the box in his hands.

“Obviously. They're going to release the kits next summer, time it for when the PR starts up for Ares Five. A cut of the profits go to NASA. I helped them design it, promised to do some promo, in return for a couple early sets and the donations.”

“A couple.” Chris repeated.

“I gave one to Mitch, and we've got one to put together back at the condo.” Mark told him.

Presents were fun; Marissa gave him a bunch of cooking utensils, ha. Martinez and Johanssen gave him a framed Cubs poster that they'd gotten the entire team to sign. And Chris- “Holy shit.”

“I played the Watney Card. That's what you call it, right?” Chris asked, grinning.

“I'm spending the day with the Cubs at their training camp in February.” Mark repeated, reading the letter from the team's manager. “They'd like me to stay longer but don't want me to distract the team. The team's really excited to meet me.”

“Don't fuck up your back.” Chris said.

“Shit, where's my baseball glove?” Mark wondered.

“Your mom has it, in your old room in Chicago. She's ready to mail it, but she wants to make you pick it up so she can talk her way into coming along with you.”

Mark laughed. “Wow. Thanks, everyone.”

After the paper had been cleaned up, before the rest of the horde arrived for dinner, Martinez stood, smiled, and after a moment, pulled Marissa up with him. “We have an announcement.”

“Congratulations.” Chris said immediately, standing to hug them both. He kissed Marissa on both cheeks, beaming happily.

“Uh.” Mark looked at Johanssen. She shook her head and shrugged.

“I'm pregnant.” Marissa explained.

Mark cheered, and got up to hug them both, too. He knew they'd wanted another baby between Ares missions, and this was early enough that Martinez would still be around for the birth and first year or so of the kid's life. “This is great! Congratulations!”

“Thanks.” Marissa smiled. “How'd you know?” She asked Chris.

“Little things. Your face is a little fuller, you didn't have wine at Thanksgiving.” He smiled. “Doctor. Can't help it, I diagnose everyone.”

“And you didn't tell us?” Johanssen demanded.

“Of course not. Not my business to be telling it.” Chris hugged Marissa again, gently. “Starting your second trimester?”

“That's spooky.” She told him.

“He can diagnose how and how much my orthopedic problems are bothering me by watching me move. Forget it. If he knows you well, it's like he's psychic.” Mark told her.

“Because I care!” Chris told them, and then hugged them all.

“Bossy Beck.” Johanssen announced.

“You have no idea.” Mark said.

“DO NOT TELL ME.” Martinez shouted.

-

After dinner, Chris was passing Mark in the hall, and Mark reached out and pulled him in by the waistband of his jeans. “Yes?”

“How are you feeling?” Mark grinned up at him, leaning back against the wall. He slid his other hand under Chris' shirt and rested it on his waist.

Chris put his arm on the wall next to Mark's head, leaned in. “Are you asking if I still feel like my dick is sprained?”

Mark hooted a laugh. “Yeah.”

Chris leaned in. “...yes.” he breathed into Mark's ear. They kissed, slow and deep.

“Maybe I'll give you a massage when we get home.” Mark said, their lips still so close they were rubbing together as they spoke, sharing breath.

“Maybe I'll give you a blow job.” Chris answered, moving in for another kiss.

To one side, Johanssen suddenly said “I am gonna crash Twitter today for SURE.” They turned to her, and she clicked another photo. “You guys are hot. Severely hot. You could probably fund a space program with porn.” She poked at her phone, then held it up to them.

Mark looked; Chris was leaning down into him and he was rising up to meet Chris, and Chris' hand was on Mark's throat and Mark's hand was pulling Chris in so their bodies touched. “That is pretty hot.”

“Can I post it?” Johanssen asked.

Mark and Chris stared each other down a long moment. Chris shrugged. Mark remembered what he'd said about role models and representation and things for kids to look up to or forward to. “Show any photos to Marissa first, make sure there's nothing in the background here that shows her house or anything she doesn't want blasted out to the world. Blur out anything other than us, that gives any clue about where we are or who is here.”

“Fair.” Johanssen agreed, and disappeared.

“You know hell's going to break loose.” Chris told him, leaning in for another kiss.

“You should never have told me about the social and political aspects of this relationship if you didn't want me raising hell.” They kissed some more. “I've been looking for a tactful way to make this look like a sexual relationship; people keep acting like we're besties and ignoring the rest and it's annoying the shit out of me. It's like we're scientists and don't have feelings, we're doing some Vulcan mind meld.”

“Someone will insist this was a friendly kiss and it didn't mean anything sexual.”

“And I will publicly make fun of them and comment on how I like how soft your lips are in contrast to the beard. And how much I like how it feels on my skin.”

“Hoo boy. Remember my sister sees this stuff.”

“You aren't more worried about your parents seeing it?”

“No. My parents will be discreet and well-mannered and ignore anything embarrassing to them. My sister will never let me hear the end of it and ask you for details.”

“...I'm an only child. This sibling thing-”

“Twin thing. That makes it worse.”

“She's been super polite. For years. Years and years.”

“I've been threatening her life to keep it that way and it's going to wear off any second. I was worried about the interview. Photos of us kissing on the internet will do it for sure.”

“I thought she liked me.”

Chris shook his head. “You really don't get the twin dynamic. She DOES like you. After you asked for her help getting me really great Hanukkah presents, she probably adores you. That's why she's going to appear on our front porch, shove her way inside, and demand to know if sex with me is all you dreamed, because if not, she'll get after me to fix it. If she didn't like you, she'd be hoping you hated it and not say anything. Same goes for every other aspect of the relationship, but for some reason she's been really concerned about my sex life lately.”

“I'm kinda terrified.” Mark admitted, thinking about Chris' beautiful, brilliant (Becks were never anything else) New-England neurologist sister being anything but warmly polite like she'd been so far.

“You have no idea.” Chris said darkly. “None. She's been interfering in my relationships – and sex life – since we were twelve.”

“Twelve?” Mark repeated.

“My dating started at twelve. My sex life waited a few more years.”

“I'm really terrified.” Mark decided.

“You should be.”

–

When they returned to the living room, they found Johanssen hunched over an envelope, scratching out math on the back of it with a chewed-up mechanical pencil. Mark sat on one side, Chris the other, and they got out their own phones to see what she was doing on her Twitter timeline.

Nothing.

Yet.

David ran up with a pad of graph paper about half full of drawings of dinosaurs and monsters, and Johanssen took it with thanks, flipping to a blank page. “Is this a T-Rex?” she asked halfway through.

“Yep.” David nodded.

“Nice job. I especially like the big teeth.”

“Thanks. Can I watch?”

“There's not much to see with math, but sure, you can watch me.” Johanssen laid out X and Y axes and started plotting points.

“What are you doing?” Mark asked.

Chris couldn't make any sense of the numbers, but that wasn't his long suit. But if it didn't make any sense to Mark either, they were into the esoteric genius land where Johanssen's brain lived.

“I'm plotting out the algorithm that Twitter uses to shift server resources and keep things running smoothly. High volume starts here,” she pointed at the edge of a deep dip in the graph. “Things start bogging down, right? Then things shift around to handle the high volume,” she indicated the U portion of the graph, “and the servers keep on running, and recover to normal flow.” She pointed the upswing.

“Okay?” Chris was clearly missing something.

“So if I drop a second photo of you guys right... here.” She put an X on the graph, right before the recovery started, “the servers get swamped again before they can recover from the first hit.” She scrawled out some numbers. “Just gotta figure out what this is in seconds.”

Mark had one hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh. “Am I allowed to help?” He finally managed.

“No. That's cheating.” Johanssen muttered, dividing something by sixty and muttering about Babylonians. “Beck, give me your watch.”

“What?”

“I need a stopwatch and my phone's going to be busy. It's easier to track with two devices. Hand it over.” She held out her hand, wriggled her fingers.

Chris took his watch off and gave it to her, unsurprised when she efficiently began the stopwatch function.

“Okay.” She said under her breath. “Here we go.” She pushed 'send' on the Twitter app on her phone, and pushed the 'start' button on Chris' watch at the same time.

On his own phone, Twitter was doing thirty second updates, and when he saw the photo of himself leaning over Mark with intent, it already had thousands of re-tweets.

Johanssen was talking to herself, quickly calling up another photo – this one with their lips touching, still talking – and watching the stop watch. At some signal, she hit send again.

Twitter visibly slowed down. “My updates aren't as fast.” He told her.

“Good.” She pulled up the photo of them kissing, and wow, that looked a lot sexier than he'd ever thought possible. At another flick of the stopwatch, she hit send again. “Shouldn't need this one, but.” She loaded up the photo of Chris and Mark pulling away and looking at her.

Chris caught some tweets about the sexiness from several fans, then Twitter stopped auto-updating. He hit 'refresh' and got the fail whale. “It's down.” He held up his phone so Johanssen could see it.

“YEAH! FEAR THE NERD QUEEN!” She shook her fists in the air.

David, Mark, and Chris applauded.

“Can you teach me to do that?” David asked.

Oooh, boy. Mark suddenly decided to check on something in the kitchen. Chris decided he needed a second opinion, and they ran for it.

–

As they were leaving, Mark remembered. “Oh, hey, Martinez, check it out.” He slid the sleeve of his sweater up to show the bruises and teeth marks Chris had left on him the night before. “The biting and grabbing is a two way street. It's all good.”

Martinez made a whimpering noise and covered his face with his hands.

Score.


End file.
